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Scope : a look inside the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences.

Scope : a look inside the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences

scope a look inside the college of physical and Mathematical Sciences
In this issue Toward Convergence Science 2 Green Energy 4 Virtual Rat 8 Into the Fold 9
Green
Researchers across the
­college
are seeking better
ways to use both traditional
and renewable resources
Energy
Sumer 2012
PAMS Foundation
Board of Directors
Officers
Cathy Sigal, Chair
Leigh Wilkinson, Vice Chair
Anita Stallings, President
Michelle Duggins, Secretary
Kathy Hart, Treasurer
Charles Leffler, Assistant Treasurer
General Members
Susan Atkinson
Tom Blinten
John Brocklebank
Charles Case
Sheila Chickene
Maureen Droessler
David Duncklee
Jonathan Earnhart
Kathy Harris
Lawrence Ives
Roger Liddle
Rob Lindberg
Roy Martin
Ed Mathers
Alan Menius
Randy Miller
David Montgomery
Connie Moreadith
Michael Peirson
Mitch Perry
Stephen Smeach
Cecil Smith
Phil Summa
Michael Thompson
Bill Trent
Barton White
Ji Zhang
Miriam Zietlow
Emeritus
Richard Cook
PAMS Alumni & Friends
Advisory Board
Officers
Benton Satterfield, President
Nancy Ridenhour, Vice President
Larry James, Secretary
Robert Hill, Assistant Secretary
General Members
Stephen Ashley
Damon Butler
Kim Deaner
Todd Fuller
Bob Jackson
Maggie LaPlante
Sherice Nivens
Glenn Osmond
Er Ralston
Jean Richardson
Pam Pittman Robinson
Aimee Tattersall
Joselyn Todd
Mike Trexler
Chip Wentz
Scope is published by the College of
Physical and Mathematical ­Sciences.
The college is made up of ­inter­nationally
recognized departments:
Chemistry
Marine, Earth & Atmospheric Sciences
Mathematics
Physics
Statistics
Molecular & Structural Biochemistry
Dean
Daniel Solomon
Managing Editor
Anita Stallings
Editor
Steve Townsend
Contributing Writers
D’Lyn Ford
Ernie Hood
Bill Krueger
Star-Lena Quintana
Angela Spivey
Design
Zubigraphics
On the cover:
Elon Ison’s work with green catalysts
is one of several PAMS research
projects that is helping to shape
the future of energy ­production.
Photo by Roger Winstead.
13,500 copies of this public
document were printed at a cost
of $7,200.00 or $.53 per copy.
scope
in this issue… Sumer 2012
4
8
10
13
Dean’s message
2 Toward Convergence Science: The next incarnation of PAMS
College news
3 NC State announces creation of the College of Sciences
10 The forecast is bright for Logan Dawson’s future
12 On the road with CMAST
18 Blondin chosen as new head of Physics
Research highlights
4 Back to Basics: PAMS researchers are laying the foundation for green energy
8 Seeking real health answers in a “virtual rat”
9 Into the fold for a clearer picture of Parkinson’s
Honors
14 Montgomery, Gardner and Butler honored at annual PAMS Awards Dinner
16 Reynolds receives award for excellence in teaching
16 Wang keeps PAMS’ CAREER Award streak going strong
17 Notables
Alumni and development news
18 How to make a gift
20 Young alumni show their Wolfpack pride in ways big and small
Just for fun
13 PAMS physicists help bring back the Bell Tower’s musical tradition
19 A celebration 125 years in the making
2 ■ Summer 2012 | scope
As you may have heard—or may
already have gleaned from the headline
on the next page—Chancellor Woodson
recently informed the Board of Trustees
of his intention to create a College of
Sciences at NC State University effective
July 1, 2013. This new college will include
the physical and chemical sciences, the
mathematical and statis­tical
sciences, the
earth-system sciences, and the biological
sciences.
The quote above from a 2011 white
paper out of the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology gives just one of a myriad
of societal and scholarly justifications
for making this shift to a more com-prehensive
and “convergent” College
of ­Sciences.
Advances in medicine
and ­biotechnology,
as well as in other
domains such as energy and environmen-tal
sustainability (an in-depth discussion
of some current PAMS projects in this
area begins on page 4), depend on a
rethinking of our traditional organizational
structures and how we prepare the next
generation of scientists and engineers.
Just as PAMS was created from
the ground up in 1960 to better feed
the disciplines that drove NC State’s
­unprecedented
growth in the post-World
War II era, the College of Sciences
will be an entirely new assemblage of
expertise from across the university.
This new entity is being designed to
build synergies—in research, teaching,
mentoring, outreach, administration,
infrastructure and more—that will make
the university a destination for the best
and brightest ­scientific
talent for decades
to come and will provide that talent with
an ­environment
to make groundbreak-ing
discoveries that impact the human
­condition.
Even with the long list of reasons
why the time is right for us to make this
transformational and historic shift in the
structure of our academic sciences, such
decisions are never easy to make or
­execute
within an institution of NC State’s
size and scope. I applaud ­Chancellor
Woodson and Provost Arden for their bold
leadership and strong vision.
I look forward to taking this ­journey
with you in the months and years to
come. As always, we seek and ­appreciate
your input along the way.
Sincerely,
Daniel L. Solomon, Dean
Toward Convergence Science:
The next incarnation of PAMS
“ Convergence is a new paradigm that can yield critical
­advances
in a broad array of sectors, from health care to
energy, food, climate, and water.”
— The Third Revolution: The Convergence of
the Life ­Sciences,
Physical Sciences and Engineering
Courtesy of University Communications
Photo by Marc Hal
Summer While many of the details will be
worked out in the coming months, the
chancellor has made the primary directives
quite clear. PAMS will be transitioned to a
broader, more comprehensive College of
Sciences. This college will include faculty
and academic programs in the physical
and chemical sciences, the mathematical
and statistical sciences, the earth-system
­sciences,
and the biological sciences.
The new College of Sciences will offi-cially
debut July 1, 2013. Provost Arden has
asked PAMS Dean Dan Solomon to serve
as the new college’s inaugural dean, and
Dean Solomon has accepted.
Looking Back: The Academic ­Science
Program Task Force
This decision has its genesis in the
Strategic Realignment Plan commissioned
by the chancellor in January 2011. Led
by Provost Arden and Vice Chancellor for
Finance and Business Charles Leffler, the
purpose of this initiative was to position
NC State for greater strength, effective-ness
and ­efficiency.
One of the chief recommendations
of this plan was to undertake a compre-hensive
assessment of the university’s
academic sciences. While this assessment
was no small feat at a STEM institution of
NC State’s size and scope, the Academic
Sciences Task Force—made up of faculty
representing all 10 colleges, the Graduate
School and the Division of Undergraduate
Academic Programs—spent the next 12
months determining the best ways to en-hance
the natural synergies among the sci-ence
programs at NC State and to promote
interdisciplinary collaboration and research
while reducing administrative overhead.
After receiving campus-wide input on
the task force’s final report, Provost Arden
recommended to the chancellor the course
of action that included the establishment
of a strong, comprehensive College of
Sciences.
In announcing his acceptance of
this recommendation to the campus
­community,
Chancellor Woodson said:
“This strategic move brings NC State
in line with national best practices, align-ing
related science departments in one
college and allowing enhanced interdisci-plinary
­educational
opportunities, improved
research collaboration and more efficient
­support
operations. Some of the most
pressing scientific issues of today lie at the
intersection of the mathematical, compu-tational,
physical and biological sciences.
Bringing these disciplines together under a
single organizational umbrella is a trans­formative
change that better positions
NC State to advance these issues through
multidisciplinary research, teaching and
service.”
Looking Forward: Next Steps
While this transition will provide incred-ible
new opportunities for NC State stu-dents
and faculty, it is not one that can be
achieved overnight. To make the transition
a successful one requires careful coordi­nation
of people and resources.
These moves will be coordinated by a
College of Sciences Steering Committee.
To be chaired by the provost, co-chaired by
Senior Vice Provost for Strategic Initiatives
Duane Larick, and comprising the deans
of NC State’s six science and engineering
colleges, this committee is charged with
determining the most appropriate admin-istrative
structure for the new college and
determining a process for identifying which
faculty and academic programs will move
to the new college.
One of the earliest actions of the
­College
of Sciences Steering Committee
will be to determine the composition of
implementation teams that will focus on
topics such as academic programs and
personnel; budget and finance; student
support services; space, infrastructure and
shared resources; and development and
alumni relations.
While it will be a challenging year of
transition, the future is very bright for STEM
disciplines at NC State.
College
Sciences
NC State ­of
scope | summer 2012 ■ 3
In the midst of NC State’s
125th anniversary c­elebration,
Chancellor Randy Woodson
made a bold decision that will
better prepare the university
to meet the challenges of the
next 125 years. Upon the
­recommendation
of Provost
­Warwick
Arden, the chan­­cellor
announced to the
Board of ­Trustees
at their
April meeting that he had
authorized the creation
of a comprehensive
College of Sciences.
For More Informa t ion
Chancellor Woodson’s announcement of the establishment
of the College of Sciences: go.ncsu.edu/cos_announcement
Check back here throughout the year for updates on
the ­transition
process: go.ncsu.edu/cos_updates
the
Announces
­creation
of
Summer How Green Is My Catalyst?
Assistant professor of chemistry Elon
Ison and his research group work on
­making
greener catalysts, those spunky
compounds that facilitate chemical
reactions. Developing greener catalytic
reactions can help to conserve precious
chemical and natural resources while
reducing the generation of waste and
environmentally hazardous byproducts.
It all boils down to truly understanding
the chemical processes involved.
“What we do is basic, fundamental
chemistry,” Ison says. “We ask ourselves
how does a catalyst work? The answers
we get will help us rationally design new
catalysts.”
The search for these answers has been
deemed important enough to earn Ison and
his team a five-year, $530,000 grant via a
prestigious National Science Foundation
Early Career Development Award, more
commonly known as a CAREER Award.
In the long term, this work could lead
to the development of chemical methods
that reduce the generation of waste and
environmentally hazardous materials and
could potentially lead to the more efficient
utilization of our chemical and natural
resources—resources such as oil, coal,
natural gas or biomass—as sources of
energy.
PAMS researchers
are laying the foundation
for green energy
The need for clean, renewable options continues to grow along
with the ever-increasing U.S. and global demand for energy.
While fossil fuels will continue to be a part of the mix for the
­foreseeable
future, “green energy,” in its many forms, will be vital
to maintaining our economies and lifestyles for generations to
come. However, the viability of green energy as a panacea will
only be as strong as the progress made in the basic science at its
foundation. Each in his own way, four PAMS researchers are
making major contributions to the knowledge base necessary to
build the bridge to future energy technologies.
basics:
Back to
4 ■ summer 2012 | scope
Elon Ison
scope | Summer 2012 ■ 5
Another project in Ison’s lab
explores the idea of converting methane,
the primary component of abundant natu-ral
gas, into methanol, which can be used
as a replacement for gasoline. While the
vision may be grand, it is ultimately the
quest for knowledge that drives Ison and
his colleagues forward. “We continue to
learn, because the basis of our chemistry
is fundamental,” he says. “We will always
develop new applications, but at the end
of the day, we think we can use the ap-proach
of asking and answering questions
on the molecular level to solve many
catalytic problems.”
Fill ‘Er Up with Sunshine
How would our world change if we had
the ability to convert sunlight into carbon-neutral
liquid fuels ready to put into to-day’s
pipelines and gas tanks? The answer
will be found in a process called artificial
photosynthesis, and Walter Weare, an as-sistant
professor of chemistry, is working
on it.
To make solar-to-fuel a reality, you need
several vital components, Weare says.
“You have to have a catalyst to create
the fuel, you have to have something
that absorbs the sunlight, and you have
to be able to transfer the energy of the
sunlight into
those catalysts in order to do
the chemistry.”
Right now, Weare and his group are
trying to find a way to control absorbing
the light and transferring the energy in
the form of electrons into the catalyst, to
create a liquid fuel—such as methanol—
from carbon dioxide.
Progress is encouraging, Weare
reports. “So far we’ve been able to make
the molecules we’re interested in, and
we are starting to learn how to tune the
energy levels of the excited state, or the
state after it absorbs the light from the
sun.”
The work is still very basic, and the
molecules being produced are unlikely
to actually end up in a device, but under-standing
the process in a systematic way
will drive the science forward. “Right
now, people kind of throw stuff together,
and if it works, great, if it doesn’t work,
then they don’t necessarily learn a whole
lot,” Weare explains. “Hopefully by doing
these very basic studies, we’ll be able to
learn the design rules in order to do this
more efficiently.”
While solar-to-fuel doesn’t yet “exist”
in reality, the concept is enthralling. It
theoretically bypasses some of the major
barriers
associated with
large-scale use of solar
power or biofuels. With solar-to-fuel, there
would be no need for massive batteries to
store the energy nor would its production
consume large amounts of plant feed-stocks,
land areas and/or water.
“With this type of technology,” says
Weare, “the water you need is limited
only to the water necessary to make oxy-gen,
and that’s not very much. Potentially
it doesn’t even need to be clean water; it
could just be waste water. You could do
it on a rooftop, you could potentially do it
in a road, you could do it in places where
you can’t grow plants.”
That flexibility opens up some remark-able
possibilities, according to Weare.
“If the technology becomes developed
enough where it’s just a module that you
put on your roof, that’s very attractive
from the standpoint of solving issues both
in the developed world and the developing
world, because then you create the op-portunity
to have individualized power and
individualized fuel. Someone in the middle
of nowhere who doesn’t have access to
electricity or an electric grid could make
their own fuel and very quickly enhance
their quality of life.”
Photos by Roger Winstead
Walter Weare
6 ■ Summer 2012 | scope
Beyond Shake-‘n-Bake
With costs decreasing and efficiencies
rising, the marketplace viability of solar-to-electricity
technologies has grown dramati-cally
in recent years. But there is still a
great deal of room for innovation, and the
development of so-called organic solar
cells is one of the most promising areas.
These photovoltaic cells are made of
polymers and other organic materials, as
opposed to today’s silicon. They can be
processed very inexpensively, via a simple
roll-to-roll printing process similar to print-ing
a newspaper.
The challenge lies in increasing the ef-ficiency
with which these cells can convert
sunlight to usable electrical power. This is
another burgeoning field of energy-related
research where the basic science—­understanding
and optimizing the process
at the molecular level—is where the
action is.
That’s where PAMS physicist Harald
Ade comes into play. Ade and his team
are working on new-and-improved pro-cessing
methods for the production of
organic photovoltaics. They also conduct
considerable research on how to optimize
the composition of the cells themselves
and have developed the detection meth-ods
needed to characterize the materials
and the results of the manufacturing
processes. That basic knowledge will
be crucial to gain rational control over how
best to mix the layers of organic mater­ials
used in the cells to maximize energy
conversion.
“The process of controlling the
­materials
themselves has still not evolved
to the point where we really understand
how to do it,” says Ade, a professor and
graduate program director in the Depart-ment
of Physics. “Right now, it is mostly
done by Edisonian trial and error: ‘shake
and bake’ and see what you get.”
With the advances being made by
Ade and his all-star team of collaborators,
that heuristic approach is likely to soon
become a thing of the past. The team has
some processing facilities at NC State,
but much of their work takes place at
the Advanced Light Source (ALS), a
synchrotron radiation facility located at the
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
in California and operated by the
U.S. Department of Energy. There, the
team uses soft X-rays, via a scanning
transmission microscope designed by
Ade, to determine the composition,
morphology and structure of polymeric
and electronic materials at the sub-micron
scale, thus contributing to understanding
their performance characteristics.
In organic solar cells, two materials
are combined, and the interface of their
domains is where the energy conversion
takes place—one layer is the donor, the
other is the acceptor, and electrons pass
from the former to the latter.
“People knew we needed two differ-ent
types of materials, and we knew from
measurements that the domain size had
to be on the order of 10 nanometers,” Ade
explains. “They conjured up an idealized
structure of the best device, with a pure
donor and a pure acceptor phase. It turns
out, though, based on our work, that that
picture needs to be revised. It looks as
if, rather than having two domains of a
certain composition, there may even be
three or more domains.”
The materials actually mix to a certain
degree, and that level of miscibility—or
measurement of homogeneity—is one of
the most important elements in determin-ing
efficiency. “So the picture is much
more complicated, and that might explain
why it’s so difficult to control,” says Ade.
“Once we understand the picture better,
we would know better which aspect of
the manufacturing we need to control,
which would give more consistent results
and improve device yield.”
Ade and his team also work on organic
LEDs, which have begun to appear in
many places in the commercial market-place.
He says we’re only at the beginning
of these organic electronic devices. “If
you look at your basic microelectronics
that started in the 1950s, we’ve been
working on them for a long time. The
organics are 40 years later, so we’re at the
very early stages in terms of really under-standing
and optimizing and engineering
the devices, and I would anticipate many,
many years of continued improvement.”
Photos by Roger Winstead
Harald Ade
scope | Summer 2012 ■ 7
The Answer, My Friend…
Today, wind energy accounts for less
than 2 percent of U.S. electricity con-sumption,
but President Obama has pro-posed
increasing that figure to 20 percent
by 2030. To approach that ambitious goal,
there will need to be major improvements
in the technologies used to harness the
wind’s power to feed energy demand.
It should come as no surprise that NC
State is at the forefront of basic research
in this arena as well. Sukanta Basu, an
associate professor of marine, earth and
atmospheric sciences, specializes in an
area called boundary layer meteorology,
which focuses on weather patterns in
the layer of the atmosphere very close to
the ground. He spends more than half of
his research time on wind energy-related
questions, and the answers will go a long
way toward moving the field forward.
Like Ison, Basu is also a recent recip­ient
of an NSF CAREER Award, with a
five-year, $505,000 grant funding research
to enhance modeling of wind resources.
As Basu explains, “The U.S. Great
Plains have very good wind resources,
mostly caused by one particular atmo-spheric
phenomenon called low-level jets.
My CAREER Award supports research
to develop better modeling and better
forecasting of these low-level jets, which
will allow us to have better accuracy in
understanding the wind resource.” That
increased understanding will allow more
precise placement of wind farms, particu-larly
as available sites become scarcer.
Trained as a civil engineer, Basu is col-laborating
on another NSF-funded project
with structural engineers at the University
of Texas at Austin. This team is seeking
to improve the design of wind turbines to
both increase their efficiency and extend
their useful life, which is currently about
20 years.
For Basu’s contribution, it’s all about
the turbulence experienced by the
turbines. “Turbines are designed for a
certain type of flow conditions, but if you
have enhanced turbulence, you will see
sub-optimal production,” he says. “If you
have wind direction that is fluctuating
quite often, the turbines will have a hard
time facing the prevalent wind direction.”
His group is trying to come up with a new
modeling framework to better character-ize
this inflow of turbulence that leads to
sudden loads on the turbines.
They are also participating in a large
U.S. Department of Energy grant
focused on forecasting wind. His group
is collecting considerable wind data at
heights up to 500 meters using a ground-based
remote sensing instrument called
SODAR, or Sonic Detection and Ranging.
Ultimately, improved wind forecasting will
optimize utilization and efficiency of wind
power resources.
“All of these problems we are studying
are going to remain very, very relevant
for the next 10 years,” Basu says. “The
problem is that wind energy is very much
dependent on our understanding of atmo-spheric
turbulence, and turbulence is one
of the most unresolved mysteries in the
scientific arena. So I’m not worried that I
won’t have anything to work on!”
Sukanta Basu
Summer There are a lot of health dangers in
the world, but nothing kills more people
each year than cardiovascular diseases.
­According
to the World Health Organi-zation,
this group of ailments involving
the heart and/or blood vessels killed an
estimated 17.3 million people worldwide
in 2008 alone.
With a challenge this big and deadly,
researchers like NC State’s Mette Olufsen
are always looking for new ways to better
understand cardiovascular health. One of
their newest tools is a rat—a virtual one,
anyway.
The Virtual Physiological Rat (VPR)
project is made possible by a five-year,
$13 million grant from National Institutes
of Health’s National Institute of General
Medical Sciences. Much of the work will
be done at the Medical College of Wis-consin,
but collaborators on the project
hail from around the world, including the
United Kingdom, Norway, New Zealand,
Washington, California, Wisconsin and
right here at NC State.
According to Olufsen, an associate
professor of mathematics, research on
cardiovascular and physiological diseases
uses a variety of animals, including the
rat, in order to fulfill the goal of translating
animal models into human models. Rats
have long been used as a stand-in for
humans, in part due to the high percent-age
of genes that are shared between the
two—about 90 percent.
Olufsen and her NC State team
will be focusing on developing mathe­matical
models that will help make
the virtual rat behave as closely as
­possible
to a real one and will allow for
the ­simultaneous
adjustment and obser-vation
of multiple individual factors.
“We want to design a computational
model that can be combined with many
experimental studies in order to bridge
the gap between what we predict will
happen and what does happen,” she says.
“One main thing—and the most difficult
thing, when it comes to our role—is that
it’s easy to generate generic features,
but it’s not so easy to make them patient
specific.”
The VPR project will allow for long-term
interaction between mathematical
modelers and experimental scientists that
steadily moves the depth of knowledge
from a broad understanding of basic
physiological and genomic data down to
the very complex relationships between
multiple genes and disparate environ­mental
factors.
That enhanced knowledge base ulti-mately
could help physicians predict and
diagnose cardiovascular diseases earlier
and more successfully. It could even make
it possible for drugs to be developed to
treat patients at the
individual level.
the
Into
fold
8 ■ summer 2012 | scope
S e e k i n g
in a
Health Answers
Real
“Virtual Ra t ”
Mette Olufsen
Photo by Steve Townsend
scope | Summer 2012 ■ 9
The intricate folding of proteins can
determine the difference between dis-ease
and health. NC State physicists use
quantum mechanical modeling to paint a
precise picture of how it happens.
Sometimes our bodies go haywire,
and even scientists can’t tell us why.
Parkinson’s disease, for instance, causes
tremors, trouble walking and other severe
problems for at least half a million people
in the U.S., and the causes aren’t com-pletely
understood. But physicists with
NC State’s Center for High Performance
Simulation (CHiPS) are learning more
about diseases like Parkinson’s by using
computers to model intricate events
­happening
inside our bodies, such as
protein folding.
While DNA provides the body’s operat-ing
instructions, proteins carry out those
instructions. But before a protein can do
its work, it must fold from a simple coil
into a 3-D structure. Many researchers
in the country study proteins and their
­activities.
But because the NC State
researchers use quantum mechanics to
model protein activities on a subatomic
level, they can track events more precisely
than even some laboratory studies.
The brains of people with Parkinson’s
contain plaques, which are abnormal
clumps of protein, mostly a protein called
alpha-synuclein. It’s not known exactly
what causes these plaques to form. So NC
State professors Miroslav Hodak and Jerry
Bernholc and Ph.D. candidate Frisco Rose
simulated by computer the most likely sce-narios.
They modeled what happens when
this protein encounters copper; high levels
of the metal are found in the cerebrospinal
fluid of people with Parkinson’s, and lab
studies of cells have shown that copper
is the most efficient metal at speeding up
the protein clumping.
“We wanted to find out if copper is
­capable
of causing changes that are seen in
Parkinson’s disease, and if we could prove
it by using our simulation,” says Hodak, a
research assistant professor of physics.
Hodak and Bernholc, Drexel Professor
of Physics and director of CHiPS, used a
new method they created that combines
two types of modeling to achieve greater
accuracy while keeping the calculation
manageable. The method uses molecular
mechanical modeling, which divides ob-jects
into atoms, and quantum mechanical
modeling, which further divides atoms
into nuclei and electrons.
Other researchers had shown with
lab experiments using real cells approxi-mately
where copper first attaches to the
protein. “But the information from lab ex-periments
was imprecise,” Bernholc says.
“We figured out on the basis of quantum
mechanical calculations exactly where the
copper goes.” Given that precise location,
the researchers could use molecular mod-eling
to determine how the protein folds.
Their simulation showed a detailed,
likely scenario for how copper attaches to
the protein involved in Parkinson’s plaques
and exactly how the protein folds to form
them. The study was published June 14,
2011, in Scientific Reports. The work
provides clues for other researchers to
use as they look for treatments. The NC
State team will expand on their work by
exploring the promise of a particular drug
as a potential Parkinson’s treatment. “We
have a target drug we want to look at to
find out if it removes the copper from a
misfolded protein and makes it fold back
into the original structure,” Hodak says.
This article originally appeared in the
Winter 2011 issue of NC State magazine,
which is a benefit of membership in the
North Carolina State University Alumni
Association.
the
Into
fold
Photo by Becky Kirkland for
a
Clearer
Parkinson’s
Pictureof
From left to right: Frisco Rose,
Jerry Bernholc and Miroslav Hodak
10 ■ Summer 2012 | scope
Your heart is racing and your muscles
are tensing. You peek outside one more
time and see that the thunderstorm is still
pounding. Lightning has struck a tele-phone
pole and split it down the center.
You close your eyes tightly and you wait
for the worst of it to pass.
Fear is a feeling well known to anyone
who has experienced a severe storm
up close. What is uncommon is Logan
­Dawson,
who opened his eyes after
a deadly tornado hit his hometown of
Birmingham, Alabama, and turned his fear
into a passion and a quest for knowledge.
Dawson, who graduated this spring
with a double major in meteorology and
marine science, vividly remembers the
day that set his academic path in motion.
“On April 8, 1998, when I was seven years
old, there was an F5 tornado that hit the
county, and 30 people were killed,” he
recalls. “After seeing the damage from the
tornado, I decided that I wanted to be a
meteorologist. From that point on, I want-ed
to understand the weather and predict
when storms were going to happen.”
Dawson’s path to NC State was put
in motion by his exceptional accomplish-ments
in high school, which resulted in an
offer of a Park Scholarship. At first a little
hesitant to study so far from home, it was
during Park Scholars finalist weekend that
Dawson fell in love with the campus, the
atmosphere and, of course, the meteor­ology
program.
The final selling point was the vast
array of opportunities for hands-on learn-ing,
leadership development and campus
and community involvement that often
defines the NC State student experience.
Easy, laid-back sumers?
No thanks.
Dawson has made sure to take full
advantage of his summer time away
from classes. The summer after his
freshman year, he spent time working
as a student volunteer doing research at
the National Weather Service Forecast
Office in Alabama, alongside an NC State
alumnus. The following two summers
he spent interning at the National Center
for Atmospheric Research in Boulder,
Colorado, and at the National Severe
Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma,
respectively.
Dawson’s undergraduate research has
been vital to his academic experience as
an undergraduate and, more recently, an
appealing element to his graduate school
applications. He will begin his gradu-ate
studies this fall in the atmospheric
sciences program at Purdue University.
Ultimately, he plans to work in a national
future
The
for
forecast is
bright
Logan Dawson’s
scope | Summer 2012 ■ 11
research lab studying ways to improve
severe weather forecasting.
Gary Lackmann, an associate professor
of marine, earth and atmospheric sci-ences,
and also Dawson’s advisor and Park
Scholarship mentor, has been impressed
with how well-rounded Dawson is—a trait
Lackmann believes will serve him well.
“Logan is really smart and not only
good with science, but good with people,”
Lackmann says. “It’s that community-minded
mentality that will continue to
move him higher.”
Leaving his NC State legacy
As a person who is driven by being able
to help others, Dawson quickly became
engaged in activities throughout the cam-pus.
One activity he has been involved
with since freshman year is also one that
he is most proud to have been associated
with: the annual Krispy Kreme Challenge,
which he first heard about when visiting
NC State during finalist weekend for the
Park Scholarship.
The Krispy Kreme Challenge began
rather modestly in 2004 when a couple of
undergraduate students at NC State dared
each other to run from the Memorial Bell
Tower to the Krispy Kreme donut shop
two miles away, eat a dozen donuts each,
and run back to the Bell Tower. The chal-lenge
has gained so much notoriety and
positive feedback in the years since, that
it has grown into an event that is not only
universally celebrated across campus,
but widely known as one of the more
unique college traditions in the country.
The race evolved from a simple dare to a
large ­charity
event that benefits the North
Carolina Children’s Hospital.
Dawson served as a co-chair of the
2011 challenge, working with a group of
student and campus leaders to strength-en
the race and encourage its spread
across the nation. More than 7,500 run-ners
were registered, and $122,000 was
raised in 2011.
Dawson is also involved with the
Society of African American Physical
and Mathematical Scientists, the PAMS
Student Ambassador Program and the
American Meteorological Society Student
Chapter. Through these organizations, he
served as a mentor to younger students
pursuing degrees in meteorology, as-sisted
in recruitment by speaking to high
school students, and volunteered at the
Raleigh Girls Club.
As serious as he is about his academic
and community service pursuits, Dawson
may be even more serious when it comes
to his support of NC State athletics. A
member of the Student Wolfpack Club,
Dawson was a regular at NC State sport-ing
events, and not just big-time events
like football and basketball. Whether it
was volleyball games, tennis matches or
swim meets, he always seemed to find
the time to cheer on his Wolfpack.
While he made the most of his NC State
experience, Dawson’s primary passion is
still the same one that brought him here:
the quest to better understand and predict
deadly storms like the one that swept
through his hometown back in 1998.
“I still see it as my primary goal to study
the weather to better understand it so
we can improve our predictions and keep
people out of harm’s way,” he says.
Photos of Logan Dawson by Melvin Moore
Photo by Becky Kirkland
12 ■ Summer 2012 | scope
Larval superhighway:
NC State receives nearly
$1.3 million to study
larvae dispersal
The Department of Marine, Earth
and Atmospheric Sciences (MEAS) has
received a $1.24 million research grant
from the National Science Foundation to
study the dispersal of oyster larvae in the
Pamlico Sound.
The official title of the grant is
­“
Collaborative Research: Interacting
Effects of Local Demography and Larval
Connectivity on Estuarine Metapopulation
Dynamics.” The project, which includes
partners from UNC-Chapel Hill and the
University of Maryland, will be led by
David Eggleston, professor of MEAS and
director of CMAST.
“This project will produce new tools,
as well as test and refine others for
­studying
larval connectivity in ­marine
­systems,”
Eggleston said. “It also
will ­provide
decision-support tools for
­improving
the efficacy of marine reserves
for management and restoration of
­marine
species and ecosystems.”
Eggleston noted that the grant also will
help train future generations of marine
­scientists.
“There is an extensive educa-tion
and outreach component in the form
of training undergraduate and graduate
students, mentoring post-docs, and
­providing
hands-on research ­opportu­nities
for high school students and their
­teachers,”
he said.
Support sustainable fisheries
right on your bumper
CMAST also recently announced the
development of a specialty license plate
that provides the opportunity to raise
funds to support student research in
­sustainable
fisheries in North Carolina.
In July 2011, the NC General Assembly
approved legislation authorizing the sale
of sustainable fisheries license plates.
Public support of the CMAST Sustain-able
Fisheries License Plate Program will
allow continued research and conser­vation
of recreational and commercially
important fisheries, support undergradu-ate
and graduate student training, and
provide educational outreach to help keep
North Carolina waters, and hooks, full for
generations to come.
Before plates can be produced, the NC
Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) must re-ceive
300 paid applications. The cost of a
plate is $30 ($60 for personalized plates),
in addition to any regular license fees. Part
of the proceeds goes to DMV with the re-maining
going to a special fund earmarked
for CMAST research and programs.
To preorder a specialty plate contact
CMAST at 252-222-6302 for an appli­cation
or visit the CMAST website: www.cmast.
ncsu.edu.
Located on the Carteret Community
College campus in Morehead City, NC,
CMAST is within short walking distance of
the UNC Institute of Marine Science and
the NC Division of Marine Fisheries head-quarters,
and is within five miles of the
Duke University Marine Laboratory, the
Center for Coastal Fisheries and Habitat
Research, the NC Maritime Museum and
the NC Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores.
Photo by Roger Winstead
CMAST Director David Eggleston (center)
and MEAS graduate students
taking measurements in
the Pamlico Sound.
From the underwater “superhighway” that transports ­oyster
larvae across the Pamlico Sound to the more traditional
highways we humans travel on dry land, the folks at
NC State’s Center for Marine Sciences and ­Technology
(CMAST) are always up for a road trip.
On the
CMAST
road with
scope | Summer 2012 ■ 13
There are still no bells in the Memorial
Bell Tower, but music has returned to the
campus landmark. The music comes from
a carillon, which enables songs played on
a keyboard in the basement of Holladay
Hall to create the sounds of bells that are
then amplified through speakers inside
the Bell Tower. The carillon had been
broken since 1989, but university officials
worked with the carillon’s manufacturer
last fall to make it functional again.
“It was amazing,” says Thomas H.
Stafford Jr., vice chancellor for student
affairs, who was on hand on an October
afternoon when NC State’s alma mater
was played on the carillon and broadcast
through the Bell Tower. “It’s been over
20 years. Just to hear it again almost gave
me goose bumps.”
The alma mater was performed by
Chris Gould, PAMS associate dean for
administration and a professor of physics.
Gould, an accomplished pianist, learned
about the broken carillon when he was
talking with Stafford about tours that
Stafford gives of the Bell Tower. Gould
and others in the Department of Physics
unsuccessfully tried to get the carillon
working again. But workers at the univer-sity’s
Physical Plant got involved, and after
consulting with representatives of the
carillon’s manufacturer, had success.
“It’s amazing that it works this well,”
says Gould. “If you look inside, it’s a
­mechanical
marvel.”
Stafford says students and others used
to play four to six songs on the carillon
­every
afternoon. Handwritten logbooks
from 1970–1989 show that religious
songs were played regularly, but that
­students
also played songs that were
­popular
at the time. Stafford hopes that
music will soon be played at a certain
time each day, as well as on special
­occasions.
“It has stirred up quite a bit
of excitement,” ­Stafford
says, “especially
among people who remember the music
we used to play.”
A version of this article originally ­appeared
in the Winter 2011 issue of NC State
magazine, which is a ­benefit
of member-ship
in the North Carolina State University
Alumni Association.
Interior Photos by Steve Townsend; exterior photo by Roger Winstead
PAMS
Help Bring
Back
Bell Tower’s
Musical
Tradition
the
physicists
Clockwise from top: Memorial Bell Tower, Vice Chancellor
Tom Stafford reminds Nancy Ridenhour (B.S. ‘76 Statistics)
how to play a tune on the carillon, old log books
from the 1970s, PAMS physicists examine
the carillon.
Summer David Montgomery
Distinguished Alumnus Award
David Montgomery (B.S. ’68, Ph.D. ’82
Physics) was selected as the college’s
2011 Distinguished Alumnus. Estab-lished
in 1990, the PAMS Distinguished
Alumni Award recognizes alumni whose
exceptional achievements in business,
education, research or public service have
brought honor and distinction to PAMS
and NC State.
A North Carolina native, Montgomery
comes from a “true red” Wolfpack family.
Upon graduating from High Point Central
High School in 1964, he followed in the
footsteps of his older brother and father
by enrolling at NC State. He continues to
serve his alma mater to this day through
ongoing service on the PAMS Foundation
Board of Directors as well as financial con-tributions
to the college, the Department
of Physics and The Science House.
Upon receiving his bachelor’s degree
from NC State in 1968, Montgomery
was honored as a Distinguished Military
Graduate of the Army ROTC program
and was commissioned with the rank of
second lieutenant in the Ordnance Corps
of the United States Army. He received
an active duty delay to begin his graduate
studies, where he had the opportunity
to study under two legendary physicists,
­Willard
Bennett and Wesley Doggett.
Under the direction of Bennett and,
later, Doggett, Montgomery learned
the ins and outs of plasma physics.
He also provided outstanding service
to PAMS and the university in various
teaching ­assistantships
and research
positions, both on campus and—for two
­summers—
at the Los Alamos National
Laboratory.
As Montgomery, himself, recently
recalled of this experience, “One of the
most fortunate occurrences in my life was
having these two gentlemen as mentors.”
When his four-year military delay
expired, Montgomery left campus for
the Ordnance Corps’ Aberdeen Proving
Ground in Maryland to satisfy his active-duty
requirement. He then served as
an instructor for the U.S. Army Reserve
School and the North Carolina National
Guard in the area of wheel and track
vehicle mechanics, reaching the rank of
captain before retirement.
By the time he earned his Ph.D. from
NC State in 1983, Montgomery had
already been working for four years as a
plasma physicist at Becton Dickinson and
Company in Research Triangle Park. His
early work at what is now known as BD
used low-temperature, ionized gas pro-cesses
to physically and chemically alter
the surfaces of disposable polystyrene
­tissue
culture products—products such
as petri dishes—so that cells would prop-erly
attach and colonize on the surfaces.
Montgomery designed and built a
laboratory of custom apparatus directed
toward the research and development of
commercially viable processes that could
mimic the glass surfaces on which tissue
culture had traditionally been done and
also to develop and analyze new surface
chemistries that allowed the culturing
of cells that previously required protein-based
substrates. Much of his work over
the subsequent three decades has been
in adapting these basic processes into
new applications and products.
The results continue to be impressive,
and he has been recognized for them
within BD, nationally and even internation-ally.
His work has led to 15 U.S. patents
and 5 European patents. In 2001, he
received BD’s Wesley J. Howe Award for
Process Development Excellence for his
work in the creation of a process required
for the functioning of a bacterial identi-fication
and antibiotic susceptibility test
panel. In 2010, he received the company’s
Wesley J. Howe Award for Lifetime
Achievement for his entire body of work.
He is one of seven recipients of the
award out of some 28,000 BD employees
around the world.
Martha Gardner
Medal of Achievement
Martha Gardner (Ph.D. ’97 Statistics) was
selected as the recipient of the college’s
2011 Medal of Achievement. Established
in 2005, this award recognizes early- to
mid-career alumni of the College of Physi-cal
and Mathematical Sciences who have
excelled through their chosen professions
or public service, and proven themselves
destined to make a significant impact in
science, government, education, business
or industry.
A native of Montgomery, Alabama,
Gardner received her B.S. in applied
mathematics and classical languages from
the University of Alabama. By her own
recollection, Gardner wasn’t enamored of
mathematics at first. In fact, she thought
she was on her way to becoming a Latin
professor when an advisor told her that the
reason she didn’t like math was that she
hadn’t taken the “right kind” of math yet.
At that advisor’s encouragement, Gard-ner
enrolled in her first statistics classes in
the last semester of her senior year. She
would go on to earn an M.S. in statistics
from Alabama, then came to NC State to
study under Professor J.C. Lu. Her experi-ences
with Dr. Lu and his collaborators in
the College of Engineering interested her
The College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences
­continued
its tradition of celebrating the achievements of its
alumni and friends at the annual PAMS Awards Dinner, held
last December at the Cardinal Club in downtown Raleigh.
The three 2011 honorees all boast impressive professional
resumes and unparalleled service to NC State and PAMS.
14 ■ summer 2012 | scope
Montgomery, Gardner and Butler
honored at annual PAMS Awards Dinner
Summer in a career in industry and prepared her to
work across different disciplines.
Upon graduation from NC State,
Gardner joined the Applied Statistics Lab
at General Electric Global Research. She
spent the early part of her career focused
on the development and application of
novel and efficient approaches to experi-mental
design and analysis for physical
and computer experiments.
Later, she turned her attention to aircraft
engines, serving as project leader of the
probabilistic design research effort for GE’s
aviation and energy businesses. Probabilis-tic
methods she and her team developed
at that time were implemented in in-house
design tools and have since been adopted
by hundreds of GE engineers.
Since 2004, Gardner has served
as global quality leader for GE Global
Research. She leads GE’s Design for
Six Sigma and Reliability Councils, and
she is currently focused on integrating
TRIZ decision making into research and
technology development at the company.
Gardner has been recognized for her
success throughout her 13 years at GE.
In 2002, she received GE Research’s Hull
Award for early career research. In 2004,
the MIT Technology Review listed her as
one of their “Top 100” young innovators.
She was promoted to principal scientist in
2007 and chief scientist in 2011.
Gardner is a certified GE Design for
Six Sigma Black Belt, GE Quality Leader,
and MATRIZ Level 3 TRIZ Practitioner.
She is also a past-chair of the Quality
and Productivity Section of the American
Statistical Association and serves on the
editorial boards of Significance, Quality
Engineering and The Journal of Statistics
Education.
Throughout her career, Gardner has
maintained ties with PAMS and been a
strong supporter of the Department of
Statistics, most recently as a leader in
the drive to endow the R.A. Fisher
­Distinguished
Professorship.
Damon Butler
Zenith Medal for Service
Damon Butler (B.S. ’96, Applied Math-ematics)
was selected as the recipient
of the college’s 2011 Zenith Medal for
Service. Established in 2005, this award
recognizes alumni or friends of PAMS for
distinguished contributions or advocacy
that significantly advance our ability to
make powerful impacts on science, the
economy, the environment and the quality
of human life.
Upon his graduation from NC State
in 1996, Butler joined the U.S. Air Force.
He spent six years as a space and mis-sile
­operator
with top secret security
­clearance
in Air Force Space Command,
eventually rising to the rank of captain.
He continued his formal education dur-ing
his military service, earning a master’s
degree in aeronautical science from Embry
Riddle Aeronautical University. After his
separation from the Air Force, Butler went
on to earn an M.B.A. from Duke Univer-sity’s
Fuqua School of Business in 2004.
Butler then moved to New York City to
join New York Life, where he has since ris-en
to corporate vice president, with current
responsibilities in optimizing productivity,
analyzing competitor underwriting guide-lines,
designing workflow enhancements
and evaluating performance metrics.
In addition to his professional accom-plishments,
Butler has had a profound
impact on PAMS and its students. In many
ways, that service began while he was
still an undergraduate major serving as a
math tutor to his fellow students. Today,
he serves his fellow former students as
well as the college as a member of the col-lege’s
Alumni and Friends Advisory Board.
While he has been extremely gener-ous
with his time, money and talents,
Butler’s greatest contribution to PAMS
has been as a leader in the ongoing ef-forts
to increase participation in science,
technology, engineering and mathematics
(STEM) opportunities among underserved
and underrepresented populations. He
regularly returns to campus at his own
expense—and often on short notice—to
serve as a motivational speaker and role
model for future STEM leaders.
He has engaged elementary and
middle school students through Imhotep
Academy and Kyran Anderson Academy.
He has addressed prospective and current
PAMS students through the Multicultural
Affairs Visitation Day, freshman diversity
classes and last fall’s Department of
Mathematics graduation ceremony.
Butler also recently established the
Butler Summer Academy. Modeled after
Imhotep and Kyran Anderson academies,
two successful PAMS programs, the
Butler ­Summer
Academy will enhance
the STEM knowledge and leadership and
etiquette skills of rising 6th graders from
underserved populations in and around
Wake County.
scope | summer 2012 ■ 15
Photo By Marc Hal
Award recipients Martha Gardner, David Montgomery and Damon Butler
16 ■ Summer 2012 | scope
Stephen P. Reynolds, Alumni Distin-guished
Undergraduate Professor of Phys-ics
in the College of Physical and Math-ematical
Sciences, has been honored with
an Award for Excellence in Teaching from
the University of North Carolina Board of
Governors. One educator from each UNC
system campus wins the award, which
comes with a prize of $7,500 and a bronze
medallion.
The Board of Governors Award for
Excellence in Teaching is the most presti-gious
award given to faculty for teaching
excellence and was created in 1994 to
underscore the importance of teaching
and encourage, recognize and reward
outstanding teaching. Nominees for the
award must be tenured professors who
have spent at least seven years at the
nominating institutions and who have
“demonstrated excellent or exceptional
teaching ability over a sustained period of
time.”
Reynolds is the fifth PAMS faculty
member to receive the award. Previous
winners include Forrest C. “Buzz” Hentz
(Chemistry, 1994–1995), Richard R. Patty
(Physics, 1998–1999), William H. Swal-low
(Statistics, 2006–2007) and Robert J.
Beichner (Physics, 2009–2010).
In addition to being a world-renowned
astrophysicist, Reynolds is also an ac-complished
violinist. As an undergradu-ate
student at Harvard, he served as
concertmaster and assistant conduc-tor
of the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra.
In graduate school at the University
of ­California,
Berkeley, he performed
with the Oakland Symphony and other
Bay Area professional orchestras. An
­endowed
scholarship recently was es-tablished
in Reynolds’ honor to support
an outstanding undergraduate student
who is pursuing a minor in music with a
stringed instrument.
Reynolds received a bachelor’s degree
in physics from Harvard in 1971, and M.S.
and Ph.D. degrees in physics from the
University of California, Berkeley in 1973
and 1980, respectively. He is a Fellow of
the American Physical Society.
Wang keeps PAMS’ ­CAREER
Award streak going strong
Huixia “Judy” Wang, assistant profes-sor
of statistics, has received an Early
Career Development Award, more com-monly
known as a CAREER Award, from
the National Science Foundation (NSF).
The award is one of the highest honors
given by NSF to early-career university
faculty in science and engineering, and is
intended to advance the development of
their research and careers. This is the 18th
CAREER Award received by a PAMS fac-ulty
member—and the fourth received by
a member of the statistics faculty—since
2004. Each of the college’s academic
departments has received at least two
awards during that time.
Wang’s five-year, $400,000 grant will
fund research related to her proposal,
titled “A new and pragmatic framework
for modeling and predicting conditional
quantiles in data-sparse regions.” Through
this work, Wang and her collaborators will
seek to develop new theories and meth-odologies
to better model and predict
events that may be extremely rare, yet
have significant consequences. Unexpect-edly
heavy rainfall, large portfolio loss, and
dangerously low birth weight are just a
few examples of the types of events that
could be addressed.
A native of Henan Province, China,
Wang earned her B.S. and M.S. in statis-tics
from Shanghai’s prestigious Fudan
University before coming to the United
States in 2002 to conduct her doctoral
work at the University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign. After earning her Ph.D. in
2006, Wang joined the faculty of the NC
State University Department of Statistics,
where her research has focused on bioin-formatics,
quantile regression, measure-ment
error, missing data, longitudinal data
analysis, survival data analysis, empirical
likelihood and extremes.
Reynolds
­receives
award
for
­excellence
in
teaching
Photo By Marc Hal
Photo by Becky Kirkland
Huixia “Judy” Wang
scope | Summer 2012 ■ 17
Harald Ade (Physics), Jerry Bernholc
(Physics) and Sastry Pantula (Statistics)
were elected as Fellows of the Ameri-can
Association for the Advancement
of Science, an international organization
“dedicated to advancing science around
the world by serving as an educator,
leader, spokesperson and professional
organization.”
Edmond Bowden (Chemistry) was
named the 2011 “Alumni Star” by the
College of Humanities and Sciences
at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Bowden earned his Ph.D. in chemistry
from VCU in 1982 before joining the
NC State faculty.
Charles Case (B.S. ‘73 Physics) was
named a North Carolina Super Lawyer
for 2012. Case is a partner in the firm
of Hunton & Williams and heads up the
firm’s environmental group in Raleigh. He
also serves on the board of directors of
the PAMS Foundation. It is the seventh
consecutive year that he has appeared
on this annual listing of the state’s top
attorneys.
Richard Deans (Chemistry undergrad-uate
student) was one of four NC State
students to receive a 2012 Goldwater
Scholarship. This merit-based scholarship
is awarded to about 300 college sopho-mores
and juniors nationwide.
Todd Fuller (B.S. ‘96 Applied Math-ematics)
is a member of the 2012 class
of the Atlantic Coast Conference Men’s
Basketball Tournament Legends. A na-tive
of Charlotte, Fuller was a dominant
inside presence for the Wolfpack, earning
All-ACC honors three times and leading
the conference in scoring his senior year
before a five-year career in the National
Basketball Association.
Chueng Ji (Physics) was named a
Fellow of the American Physical Society
“for his remarkable and pioneering con-tributions
in QCD (quantum chromody-namics)
applying light-front dynamics to
fundamental aspects of hadron physics,
including spectroscopy, wave functions
and form factors.”
Tim Kelley (Mathematics) has been
named chair of the board of trustees of
the Society for Industrial and Applied
Mathematics, an international organi­zation
of more than 13,000 applied
and computational mathematicians,
­computer
scientists, numerical analysts,
engineers, statisticians, mathematics
educators and students.
Nicholas Lowman (Applied Math-ematics
graduate student), Molly Matty
(Chemistry undergraduate student)
and Alison Moyer (Marine, Earth and
Atmospheric Sciences graduate student)
received National Science Foundation
graduate research fellowships. These
prestigious fellowships support outstand-ing
students in STEM disciplines, provid-ing
three years of support with an annual
stipend of $30,000, a cost-of-education
allowance, and international research and
professional development opportunities.
Paul Roelle (M.S. ’96, Ph.D. ’01
Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sci-ences)
has been promoted to the rank
of colonel by the U.S. Air Force. Roelle is
the deputy chief of integration, plans and
requirements for Headquarters Air Force
Weather.
Photo by Aelx Sacehnz NC State Madei Renslatio
NOTABLES
Courtesy of Paul Roele
Todd Fuller
Molly Matty Paul Roelle
18 ■ Summer 2012 | scope
John Blondin has been selected to
serve as head of the Department of
­Physics,
effective January 1. He suc-ceeded
Michael Paesler, who returned
to the faculty after six years of service as
department head.
Blondin earned a B.A. in physics from
the University of Wisconsin in 1982.
He then proceeded to the University of
Chicago for graduate studies, earning his
M.S. in 1984 and his Ph.D. in 1987 under
the direction of Arieh Konigl. He com-pleted
postdoctoral research positions
at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center,
the University of Virginia and UNC-Chapel
Hill before joining the NC State physics
faculty as an assistant professor in 1993.
He was promoted to associate professor
in 1997 and full professor in 2002. Before
being appointed head, Blondin had served
as the department’s director of under-graduate
programs since 2007.
An internationally renowned astrophysi-cist,
Blondin has been computing the cos-mos
for over 20 years, using everything
from a laptop to supercomputers. He
began his experience in high-performance
computing with the opening of the Na-tional
Center for Supercomputing Applica-tions,
and continues to take advantage of
the largest machines currently available,
including Ranger at the Texas Advanced
Computing Center, with 63,000 processor
cores, and Jaguar at the National Center
for Computational Sciences, with 224,000
processor cores. His research includes
interacting binary stars, accretion disks
around black holes, supernova remnants,
and the origin of supernova explosions.
He co-authored the hydrodynamics code
VH-1, which is widely used in the astro-physics
community.
John Blondin has been honored
throughout his career for excellence in
research and teaching. He received the
Sigma Xi Faculty Research Award in
1995, Cottrell Scholar Award in 1996 and
National Science Foundation Early Career
Development Award in 1997, and he was
elected a Fellow of the American Physi-cal
Society in 2009. Blondin also received
NC State University’s Alumni Outstanding
Teacher Award in 2000 and the Alumni
Distinguished Undergraduate Professor
Award in 2010.
In his very limited free time,
Blondin enjoys playing ice hockey with
his two sons, both of whom are
NC State mathematics majors.
Physics has a rich history at NC State,
dating back to the earliest days of the uni-versity.
In 2009, two now emeritus faculty
members, Jasper Memory and Raymond
Fornes, completed a comprehensive
history of the department, titled History
of the NC State University
Department of Physics:
A Success Story. You can
check it out at www.phys-ics.
ncsu.edu/history.
You may remember how difficult it
was to manage the expense of higher
education. You may want to help today’s
students achieve their dreams.
The PAMS Foundation provides many
ways to support students, faculty and pro-grams
of the college. Whether you want
to contribute to an existing scholarship,
support a departmental enhancement
fund, make a memorial gift or consider
support in other areas, our staff is avail-able
to help you explore the options.
To support existing funds
To contribute to a scholarship, fellow-ship
or other fund, fill out our secure,
online gift form at www.pams.ncsu.
edu/give or mail a check
to the PAMS Founda-tion,
­Campus
Box 8201,
Raleigh, NC, 27695. Make
checks payable to PAMS
Foundation and write the name of the
fund on the “notes” or “for” line.
If your employer provides matches
for charitable donations, please send a
completed matching gift form with your
contribution.
There are many funds
not mentioned in this
issue of Scope. For a full
list of funds, visit go.ncsu.
edu/pams_funds or
­contact
our office.
To explore other options
If you have questions about gift
planning, we can help you identify tax
benefits, choose between permanent en-dowment
versus one-time support, and
explore estate planning or life-income
options.
There are many ways to match your
interests with specific college needs,
and several possibilities for making
your vision a reality. Whether using
cash, ­appreciated
stock, real estate or a
­bequest,
we can help you find the best
way to make the most of your gift.
Contact us at 919-515-3462 or by
­e-
mail at pams_dev@ncsu.edu.
Blondin
chosen as
of
new head
physics
John Blondin
How to make a gift
Photo By Marc Hal
Summer For a celebration worthy of NC State’s
125th birthday, we need more than just
one party. In fact, we’re going to take a
whole year to celebrate and invite all our
closest friends, starting with faculty, staff,
students and alumni. The celebration
theme, Tradition and Transformation, sets
the stage to take a proud look at our past
and imagine the many discoveries ahead.
It all started on March 5, with the
traditional Founder’s Day Dinner, followed
by the transformation of the university’s
Website, ncsu.edu, on March 7, NC
State’s official birthday. The first week
of March also marked the unveiling of
the 125th logos, which include stylized
­renderings
of the Memorial Bell Tower.
But that’s just the beginning. A blue-ribbon
planning committee, co-chaired
by Dean Dan Solomon, has put together
a series of signature events. Undoubt-edly,
the highlight so far was a raucous,
campus-wide birthday party held April 2
at Reynolds Coliseum. More than 4,500
­students,
faculty, staff and supporters
came out to enjoy music, food and give-aways
and to share their Wolfpack pride.
Beyond the campus-wide activities,
entities from across the university—from
the 12 colleges to dozens of student
­organizations—
are also taking part by
­giving
their programming this year a
­special
125th twist.
“What I like about the 125th is that
it’s an opportunity for us to celebrate our
­connection
and passion for NC State,”
says Nevin Kessler, vice chancellor for
university advancement and the other
co-chair of the 125th planning committee.
“We can set our goals a little higher, reach
a little further than we have in the past,
and have some fun doing it.”
You can keep up with the latest 125th
news at 125.ncsu.edu.
A 125
scope | summer 2012 ■ 19
making
years
celebration
in the
Photos Courtesy of University Communications
20 ■ Summer 2012 | scope
Kristen Hall loves NC State, PAMS and
the Department of Marine, Earth and At-mospheric
Sciences (MEAS). As a gradu-ate
student at the University of North
Carolina Wilmington who just earned her
B.S. in geology from NC State in 2010,
Hall is not in a position to make a large
donation to her alma mater. That doesn’t
make her any less committed to giving
back and supporting current students.
She also knows that her contribution,
combined with others, goes a long way
toward making a transformative impact
on the department, college and university
she loves so much.
“I decided to make a gift to PAMS
­because
of the great experiences I had as
a geology major,” Hall says. “While I was
at NC State, I had so many opportunities
at my fingertips, and I hope my small gift
will go a long way in continuing to make
those opportunities possible.”
During her time as an undergraduate
student, Hall took full advantage of both
NC State’s world-class research opportu-nities
and the smaller communities the
university and PAMS offer. She worked in
the laboratory and in the field alongside
MEAS graduate students and faculty,
quickly developing a sense of what it
means to do real research. She was also a
part of the WISE (Women in Science and
Engineering) living-learning village
and was the president of the PAMS
­Student
Council.
A native of Wilmington, NC, Hall is
­using
her experiences at NC State to
study shoreline erosion and accretion
of Masonboro Island. Her research is
directed at how hurricanes, beach renour-ishment,
and the implementation of the
jetties have affected the island. She also
works at the tutoring center on campus
focusing on geology, physics, chemistry,
environmental sciences, oceanography
and marine biology and teaches classes
every semester in UNCW’s Department
of Geography and Geology.
Every gift counts
While universities across the country,
including NC State, tend to publicize
the larger, sometimes million dollar
gifts, smaller gifts have a tendency to
go unannounced. However, they are
very much noticed—and very much
appreciated. Last year, gifts of $100 or
less to NC State added up to just over
$1.1 million, with over $40,000 going
to PAMS.
These gifts impact the university’s
reputation as well as its bottom line.
Alumni giving—at any level—is a key
factor in college and university rank-ings,
including the annual rankings in
U.S. News and World Report. Parents
and students often compare rankings
when making enrollment decisions.
According to Ann Horner, executive
director of the NC State Annual Fund,
alumni gifts are more important than
ever. “My goal for Annual Giving at
NC State is to help alumni get into the
habit of giving back to us,” she says.
“The best thing about annual giving
is that anyone can participate. All it
takes is that first gift in the amount
best for that person at that time.”
To make a gift of any amount to
PAMS, please contact
the Office of Col-lege
Advancement at
919-515-3462 or give
online at www.pams.
ncsu.edu/give.
Young alumni show their ­in
ways big and small
Wolcfpak pride
Kristen Hall on graduation
day and hard at work
as a UNC Wilmington
graduate student
photos courtesy of Kristen Hal
Dr. Margaret D. “Canopy Meg
Lowman is director of the
Nature Research Center at the
North Carolina Museum of
Natural Sciences and research
professor in the College of
Physical and Mathematical ­Sciences
at NC State University.
“
Learn more at
www.pams.ncsu.edu
How do we address some of the world’s greatest challenges and unlock
the mysteries of the universe? We start by preparing the next generation
of scientists with the skills, the confidence and the sense of responsibility
to be effective communicators of science and informers of public policy.
The College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences at NC State is proud
to be a leading partner with the Nature Research Center in inspiring future
generations to be great scientists and great science champions.
Transform. NC State University.
Partners in
­Transforming
Science
Nonprofit Org
US Postage
PAID
Raleigh, NC
Permit #2353
Campus Box 8201
Raleigh, North Carolina 27695–8201
Encourage Excellence
Your contribution to the PAMS Fund for Excellence provides direct
support for Dean’s Circle Scholarships. These scholarships help the college
recruit the best and brightest students from across North Carolina and
beyond—students who will be the next generation of science leaders.
Giving is easy. You can either contact our office directly or give online at
www.pams.ncsu.edu/give. The online gift form will allow you to designate
your gift to the Fund for Excellence or the departmental fund of your choice.
www.pams.ncsu.edu
pams_dev@ncsu.edu
919-515-3462
Would you like to be a
­member
of the Dean’s Circle?
Donor recognition levels
begin with your gift of
$1,000 or more.

scope a look inside the college of physical and Mathematical Sciences
In this issue Toward Convergence Science 2 Green Energy 4 Virtual Rat 8 Into the Fold 9
Green
Researchers across the
­college
are seeking better
ways to use both traditional
and renewable resources
Energy
Sumer 2012
PAMS Foundation
Board of Directors
Officers
Cathy Sigal, Chair
Leigh Wilkinson, Vice Chair
Anita Stallings, President
Michelle Duggins, Secretary
Kathy Hart, Treasurer
Charles Leffler, Assistant Treasurer
General Members
Susan Atkinson
Tom Blinten
John Brocklebank
Charles Case
Sheila Chickene
Maureen Droessler
David Duncklee
Jonathan Earnhart
Kathy Harris
Lawrence Ives
Roger Liddle
Rob Lindberg
Roy Martin
Ed Mathers
Alan Menius
Randy Miller
David Montgomery
Connie Moreadith
Michael Peirson
Mitch Perry
Stephen Smeach
Cecil Smith
Phil Summa
Michael Thompson
Bill Trent
Barton White
Ji Zhang
Miriam Zietlow
Emeritus
Richard Cook
PAMS Alumni & Friends
Advisory Board
Officers
Benton Satterfield, President
Nancy Ridenhour, Vice President
Larry James, Secretary
Robert Hill, Assistant Secretary
General Members
Stephen Ashley
Damon Butler
Kim Deaner
Todd Fuller
Bob Jackson
Maggie LaPlante
Sherice Nivens
Glenn Osmond
Er Ralston
Jean Richardson
Pam Pittman Robinson
Aimee Tattersall
Joselyn Todd
Mike Trexler
Chip Wentz
Scope is published by the College of
Physical and Mathematical ­Sciences.
The college is made up of ­inter­nationally
recognized departments:
Chemistry
Marine, Earth & Atmospheric Sciences
Mathematics
Physics
Statistics
Molecular & Structural Biochemistry
Dean
Daniel Solomon
Managing Editor
Anita Stallings
Editor
Steve Townsend
Contributing Writers
D’Lyn Ford
Ernie Hood
Bill Krueger
Star-Lena Quintana
Angela Spivey
Design
Zubigraphics
On the cover:
Elon Ison’s work with green catalysts
is one of several PAMS research
projects that is helping to shape
the future of energy ­production.
Photo by Roger Winstead.
13,500 copies of this public
document were printed at a cost
of $7,200.00 or $.53 per copy.
scope
in this issue… Sumer 2012
4
8
10
13
Dean’s message
2 Toward Convergence Science: The next incarnation of PAMS
College news
3 NC State announces creation of the College of Sciences
10 The forecast is bright for Logan Dawson’s future
12 On the road with CMAST
18 Blondin chosen as new head of Physics
Research highlights
4 Back to Basics: PAMS researchers are laying the foundation for green energy
8 Seeking real health answers in a “virtual rat”
9 Into the fold for a clearer picture of Parkinson’s
Honors
14 Montgomery, Gardner and Butler honored at annual PAMS Awards Dinner
16 Reynolds receives award for excellence in teaching
16 Wang keeps PAMS’ CAREER Award streak going strong
17 Notables
Alumni and development news
18 How to make a gift
20 Young alumni show their Wolfpack pride in ways big and small
Just for fun
13 PAMS physicists help bring back the Bell Tower’s musical tradition
19 A celebration 125 years in the making
2 ■ Summer 2012 | scope
As you may have heard—or may
already have gleaned from the headline
on the next page—Chancellor Woodson
recently informed the Board of Trustees
of his intention to create a College of
Sciences at NC State University effective
July 1, 2013. This new college will include
the physical and chemical sciences, the
mathematical and statis­tical
sciences, the
earth-system sciences, and the biological
sciences.
The quote above from a 2011 white
paper out of the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology gives just one of a myriad
of societal and scholarly justifications
for making this shift to a more com-prehensive
and “convergent” College
of ­Sciences.
Advances in medicine
and ­biotechnology,
as well as in other
domains such as energy and environmen-tal
sustainability (an in-depth discussion
of some current PAMS projects in this
area begins on page 4), depend on a
rethinking of our traditional organizational
structures and how we prepare the next
generation of scientists and engineers.
Just as PAMS was created from
the ground up in 1960 to better feed
the disciplines that drove NC State’s
­unprecedented
growth in the post-World
War II era, the College of Sciences
will be an entirely new assemblage of
expertise from across the university.
This new entity is being designed to
build synergies—in research, teaching,
mentoring, outreach, administration,
infrastructure and more—that will make
the university a destination for the best
and brightest ­scientific
talent for decades
to come and will provide that talent with
an ­environment
to make groundbreak-ing
discoveries that impact the human
­condition.
Even with the long list of reasons
why the time is right for us to make this
transformational and historic shift in the
structure of our academic sciences, such
decisions are never easy to make or
­execute
within an institution of NC State’s
size and scope. I applaud ­Chancellor
Woodson and Provost Arden for their bold
leadership and strong vision.
I look forward to taking this ­journey
with you in the months and years to
come. As always, we seek and ­appreciate
your input along the way.
Sincerely,
Daniel L. Solomon, Dean
Toward Convergence Science:
The next incarnation of PAMS
“ Convergence is a new paradigm that can yield critical
­advances
in a broad array of sectors, from health care to
energy, food, climate, and water.”
— The Third Revolution: The Convergence of
the Life ­Sciences,
Physical Sciences and Engineering
Courtesy of University Communications
Photo by Marc Hal
Summer While many of the details will be
worked out in the coming months, the
chancellor has made the primary directives
quite clear. PAMS will be transitioned to a
broader, more comprehensive College of
Sciences. This college will include faculty
and academic programs in the physical
and chemical sciences, the mathematical
and statistical sciences, the earth-system
­sciences,
and the biological sciences.
The new College of Sciences will offi-cially
debut July 1, 2013. Provost Arden has
asked PAMS Dean Dan Solomon to serve
as the new college’s inaugural dean, and
Dean Solomon has accepted.
Looking Back: The Academic ­Science
Program Task Force
This decision has its genesis in the
Strategic Realignment Plan commissioned
by the chancellor in January 2011. Led
by Provost Arden and Vice Chancellor for
Finance and Business Charles Leffler, the
purpose of this initiative was to position
NC State for greater strength, effective-ness
and ­efficiency.
One of the chief recommendations
of this plan was to undertake a compre-hensive
assessment of the university’s
academic sciences. While this assessment
was no small feat at a STEM institution of
NC State’s size and scope, the Academic
Sciences Task Force—made up of faculty
representing all 10 colleges, the Graduate
School and the Division of Undergraduate
Academic Programs—spent the next 12
months determining the best ways to en-hance
the natural synergies among the sci-ence
programs at NC State and to promote
interdisciplinary collaboration and research
while reducing administrative overhead.
After receiving campus-wide input on
the task force’s final report, Provost Arden
recommended to the chancellor the course
of action that included the establishment
of a strong, comprehensive College of
Sciences.
In announcing his acceptance of
this recommendation to the campus
­community,
Chancellor Woodson said:
“This strategic move brings NC State
in line with national best practices, align-ing
related science departments in one
college and allowing enhanced interdisci-plinary
­educational
opportunities, improved
research collaboration and more efficient
­support
operations. Some of the most
pressing scientific issues of today lie at the
intersection of the mathematical, compu-tational,
physical and biological sciences.
Bringing these disciplines together under a
single organizational umbrella is a trans­formative
change that better positions
NC State to advance these issues through
multidisciplinary research, teaching and
service.”
Looking Forward: Next Steps
While this transition will provide incred-ible
new opportunities for NC State stu-dents
and faculty, it is not one that can be
achieved overnight. To make the transition
a successful one requires careful coordi­nation
of people and resources.
These moves will be coordinated by a
College of Sciences Steering Committee.
To be chaired by the provost, co-chaired by
Senior Vice Provost for Strategic Initiatives
Duane Larick, and comprising the deans
of NC State’s six science and engineering
colleges, this committee is charged with
determining the most appropriate admin-istrative
structure for the new college and
determining a process for identifying which
faculty and academic programs will move
to the new college.
One of the earliest actions of the
­College
of Sciences Steering Committee
will be to determine the composition of
implementation teams that will focus on
topics such as academic programs and
personnel; budget and finance; student
support services; space, infrastructure and
shared resources; and development and
alumni relations.
While it will be a challenging year of
transition, the future is very bright for STEM
disciplines at NC State.
College
Sciences
NC State ­of
scope | summer 2012 ■ 3
In the midst of NC State’s
125th anniversary c­elebration,
Chancellor Randy Woodson
made a bold decision that will
better prepare the university
to meet the challenges of the
next 125 years. Upon the
­recommendation
of Provost
­Warwick
Arden, the chan­­cellor
announced to the
Board of ­Trustees
at their
April meeting that he had
authorized the creation
of a comprehensive
College of Sciences.
For More Informa t ion
Chancellor Woodson’s announcement of the establishment
of the College of Sciences: go.ncsu.edu/cos_announcement
Check back here throughout the year for updates on
the ­transition
process: go.ncsu.edu/cos_updates
the
Announces
­creation
of
Summer How Green Is My Catalyst?
Assistant professor of chemistry Elon
Ison and his research group work on
­making
greener catalysts, those spunky
compounds that facilitate chemical
reactions. Developing greener catalytic
reactions can help to conserve precious
chemical and natural resources while
reducing the generation of waste and
environmentally hazardous byproducts.
It all boils down to truly understanding
the chemical processes involved.
“What we do is basic, fundamental
chemistry,” Ison says. “We ask ourselves
how does a catalyst work? The answers
we get will help us rationally design new
catalysts.”
The search for these answers has been
deemed important enough to earn Ison and
his team a five-year, $530,000 grant via a
prestigious National Science Foundation
Early Career Development Award, more
commonly known as a CAREER Award.
In the long term, this work could lead
to the development of chemical methods
that reduce the generation of waste and
environmentally hazardous materials and
could potentially lead to the more efficient
utilization of our chemical and natural
resources—resources such as oil, coal,
natural gas or biomass—as sources of
energy.
PAMS researchers
are laying the foundation
for green energy
The need for clean, renewable options continues to grow along
with the ever-increasing U.S. and global demand for energy.
While fossil fuels will continue to be a part of the mix for the
­foreseeable
future, “green energy,” in its many forms, will be vital
to maintaining our economies and lifestyles for generations to
come. However, the viability of green energy as a panacea will
only be as strong as the progress made in the basic science at its
foundation. Each in his own way, four PAMS researchers are
making major contributions to the knowledge base necessary to
build the bridge to future energy technologies.
basics:
Back to
4 ■ summer 2012 | scope
Elon Ison
scope | Summer 2012 ■ 5
Another project in Ison’s lab
explores the idea of converting methane,
the primary component of abundant natu-ral
gas, into methanol, which can be used
as a replacement for gasoline. While the
vision may be grand, it is ultimately the
quest for knowledge that drives Ison and
his colleagues forward. “We continue to
learn, because the basis of our chemistry
is fundamental,” he says. “We will always
develop new applications, but at the end
of the day, we think we can use the ap-proach
of asking and answering questions
on the molecular level to solve many
catalytic problems.”
Fill ‘Er Up with Sunshine
How would our world change if we had
the ability to convert sunlight into carbon-neutral
liquid fuels ready to put into to-day’s
pipelines and gas tanks? The answer
will be found in a process called artificial
photosynthesis, and Walter Weare, an as-sistant
professor of chemistry, is working
on it.
To make solar-to-fuel a reality, you need
several vital components, Weare says.
“You have to have a catalyst to create
the fuel, you have to have something
that absorbs the sunlight, and you have
to be able to transfer the energy of the
sunlight into
those catalysts in order to do
the chemistry.”
Right now, Weare and his group are
trying to find a way to control absorbing
the light and transferring the energy in
the form of electrons into the catalyst, to
create a liquid fuel—such as methanol—
from carbon dioxide.
Progress is encouraging, Weare
reports. “So far we’ve been able to make
the molecules we’re interested in, and
we are starting to learn how to tune the
energy levels of the excited state, or the
state after it absorbs the light from the
sun.”
The work is still very basic, and the
molecules being produced are unlikely
to actually end up in a device, but under-standing
the process in a systematic way
will drive the science forward. “Right
now, people kind of throw stuff together,
and if it works, great, if it doesn’t work,
then they don’t necessarily learn a whole
lot,” Weare explains. “Hopefully by doing
these very basic studies, we’ll be able to
learn the design rules in order to do this
more efficiently.”
While solar-to-fuel doesn’t yet “exist”
in reality, the concept is enthralling. It
theoretically bypasses some of the major
barriers
associated with
large-scale use of solar
power or biofuels. With solar-to-fuel, there
would be no need for massive batteries to
store the energy nor would its production
consume large amounts of plant feed-stocks,
land areas and/or water.
“With this type of technology,” says
Weare, “the water you need is limited
only to the water necessary to make oxy-gen,
and that’s not very much. Potentially
it doesn’t even need to be clean water; it
could just be waste water. You could do
it on a rooftop, you could potentially do it
in a road, you could do it in places where
you can’t grow plants.”
That flexibility opens up some remark-able
possibilities, according to Weare.
“If the technology becomes developed
enough where it’s just a module that you
put on your roof, that’s very attractive
from the standpoint of solving issues both
in the developed world and the developing
world, because then you create the op-portunity
to have individualized power and
individualized fuel. Someone in the middle
of nowhere who doesn’t have access to
electricity or an electric grid could make
their own fuel and very quickly enhance
their quality of life.”
Photos by Roger Winstead
Walter Weare
6 ■ Summer 2012 | scope
Beyond Shake-‘n-Bake
With costs decreasing and efficiencies
rising, the marketplace viability of solar-to-electricity
technologies has grown dramati-cally
in recent years. But there is still a
great deal of room for innovation, and the
development of so-called organic solar
cells is one of the most promising areas.
These photovoltaic cells are made of
polymers and other organic materials, as
opposed to today’s silicon. They can be
processed very inexpensively, via a simple
roll-to-roll printing process similar to print-ing
a newspaper.
The challenge lies in increasing the ef-ficiency
with which these cells can convert
sunlight to usable electrical power. This is
another burgeoning field of energy-related
research where the basic science—­understanding
and optimizing the process
at the molecular level—is where the
action is.
That’s where PAMS physicist Harald
Ade comes into play. Ade and his team
are working on new-and-improved pro-cessing
methods for the production of
organic photovoltaics. They also conduct
considerable research on how to optimize
the composition of the cells themselves
and have developed the detection meth-ods
needed to characterize the materials
and the results of the manufacturing
processes. That basic knowledge will
be crucial to gain rational control over how
best to mix the layers of organic mater­ials
used in the cells to maximize energy
conversion.
“The process of controlling the
­materials
themselves has still not evolved
to the point where we really understand
how to do it,” says Ade, a professor and
graduate program director in the Depart-ment
of Physics. “Right now, it is mostly
done by Edisonian trial and error: ‘shake
and bake’ and see what you get.”
With the advances being made by
Ade and his all-star team of collaborators,
that heuristic approach is likely to soon
become a thing of the past. The team has
some processing facilities at NC State,
but much of their work takes place at
the Advanced Light Source (ALS), a
synchrotron radiation facility located at the
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
in California and operated by the
U.S. Department of Energy. There, the
team uses soft X-rays, via a scanning
transmission microscope designed by
Ade, to determine the composition,
morphology and structure of polymeric
and electronic materials at the sub-micron
scale, thus contributing to understanding
their performance characteristics.
In organic solar cells, two materials
are combined, and the interface of their
domains is where the energy conversion
takes place—one layer is the donor, the
other is the acceptor, and electrons pass
from the former to the latter.
“People knew we needed two differ-ent
types of materials, and we knew from
measurements that the domain size had
to be on the order of 10 nanometers,” Ade
explains. “They conjured up an idealized
structure of the best device, with a pure
donor and a pure acceptor phase. It turns
out, though, based on our work, that that
picture needs to be revised. It looks as
if, rather than having two domains of a
certain composition, there may even be
three or more domains.”
The materials actually mix to a certain
degree, and that level of miscibility—or
measurement of homogeneity—is one of
the most important elements in determin-ing
efficiency. “So the picture is much
more complicated, and that might explain
why it’s so difficult to control,” says Ade.
“Once we understand the picture better,
we would know better which aspect of
the manufacturing we need to control,
which would give more consistent results
and improve device yield.”
Ade and his team also work on organic
LEDs, which have begun to appear in
many places in the commercial market-place.
He says we’re only at the beginning
of these organic electronic devices. “If
you look at your basic microelectronics
that started in the 1950s, we’ve been
working on them for a long time. The
organics are 40 years later, so we’re at the
very early stages in terms of really under-standing
and optimizing and engineering
the devices, and I would anticipate many,
many years of continued improvement.”
Photos by Roger Winstead
Harald Ade
scope | Summer 2012 ■ 7
The Answer, My Friend…
Today, wind energy accounts for less
than 2 percent of U.S. electricity con-sumption,
but President Obama has pro-posed
increasing that figure to 20 percent
by 2030. To approach that ambitious goal,
there will need to be major improvements
in the technologies used to harness the
wind’s power to feed energy demand.
It should come as no surprise that NC
State is at the forefront of basic research
in this arena as well. Sukanta Basu, an
associate professor of marine, earth and
atmospheric sciences, specializes in an
area called boundary layer meteorology,
which focuses on weather patterns in
the layer of the atmosphere very close to
the ground. He spends more than half of
his research time on wind energy-related
questions, and the answers will go a long
way toward moving the field forward.
Like Ison, Basu is also a recent recip­ient
of an NSF CAREER Award, with a
five-year, $505,000 grant funding research
to enhance modeling of wind resources.
As Basu explains, “The U.S. Great
Plains have very good wind resources,
mostly caused by one particular atmo-spheric
phenomenon called low-level jets.
My CAREER Award supports research
to develop better modeling and better
forecasting of these low-level jets, which
will allow us to have better accuracy in
understanding the wind resource.” That
increased understanding will allow more
precise placement of wind farms, particu-larly
as available sites become scarcer.
Trained as a civil engineer, Basu is col-laborating
on another NSF-funded project
with structural engineers at the University
of Texas at Austin. This team is seeking
to improve the design of wind turbines to
both increase their efficiency and extend
their useful life, which is currently about
20 years.
For Basu’s contribution, it’s all about
the turbulence experienced by the
turbines. “Turbines are designed for a
certain type of flow conditions, but if you
have enhanced turbulence, you will see
sub-optimal production,” he says. “If you
have wind direction that is fluctuating
quite often, the turbines will have a hard
time facing the prevalent wind direction.”
His group is trying to come up with a new
modeling framework to better character-ize
this inflow of turbulence that leads to
sudden loads on the turbines.
They are also participating in a large
U.S. Department of Energy grant
focused on forecasting wind. His group
is collecting considerable wind data at
heights up to 500 meters using a ground-based
remote sensing instrument called
SODAR, or Sonic Detection and Ranging.
Ultimately, improved wind forecasting will
optimize utilization and efficiency of wind
power resources.
“All of these problems we are studying
are going to remain very, very relevant
for the next 10 years,” Basu says. “The
problem is that wind energy is very much
dependent on our understanding of atmo-spheric
turbulence, and turbulence is one
of the most unresolved mysteries in the
scientific arena. So I’m not worried that I
won’t have anything to work on!”
Sukanta Basu
Summer There are a lot of health dangers in
the world, but nothing kills more people
each year than cardiovascular diseases.
­According
to the World Health Organi-zation,
this group of ailments involving
the heart and/or blood vessels killed an
estimated 17.3 million people worldwide
in 2008 alone.
With a challenge this big and deadly,
researchers like NC State’s Mette Olufsen
are always looking for new ways to better
understand cardiovascular health. One of
their newest tools is a rat—a virtual one,
anyway.
The Virtual Physiological Rat (VPR)
project is made possible by a five-year,
$13 million grant from National Institutes
of Health’s National Institute of General
Medical Sciences. Much of the work will
be done at the Medical College of Wis-consin,
but collaborators on the project
hail from around the world, including the
United Kingdom, Norway, New Zealand,
Washington, California, Wisconsin and
right here at NC State.
According to Olufsen, an associate
professor of mathematics, research on
cardiovascular and physiological diseases
uses a variety of animals, including the
rat, in order to fulfill the goal of translating
animal models into human models. Rats
have long been used as a stand-in for
humans, in part due to the high percent-age
of genes that are shared between the
two—about 90 percent.
Olufsen and her NC State team
will be focusing on developing mathe­matical
models that will help make
the virtual rat behave as closely as
­possible
to a real one and will allow for
the ­simultaneous
adjustment and obser-vation
of multiple individual factors.
“We want to design a computational
model that can be combined with many
experimental studies in order to bridge
the gap between what we predict will
happen and what does happen,” she says.
“One main thing—and the most difficult
thing, when it comes to our role—is that
it’s easy to generate generic features,
but it’s not so easy to make them patient
specific.”
The VPR project will allow for long-term
interaction between mathematical
modelers and experimental scientists that
steadily moves the depth of knowledge
from a broad understanding of basic
physiological and genomic data down to
the very complex relationships between
multiple genes and disparate environ­mental
factors.
That enhanced knowledge base ulti-mately
could help physicians predict and
diagnose cardiovascular diseases earlier
and more successfully. It could even make
it possible for drugs to be developed to
treat patients at the
individual level.
the
Into
fold
8 ■ summer 2012 | scope
S e e k i n g
in a
Health Answers
Real
“Virtual Ra t ”
Mette Olufsen
Photo by Steve Townsend
scope | Summer 2012 ■ 9
The intricate folding of proteins can
determine the difference between dis-ease
and health. NC State physicists use
quantum mechanical modeling to paint a
precise picture of how it happens.
Sometimes our bodies go haywire,
and even scientists can’t tell us why.
Parkinson’s disease, for instance, causes
tremors, trouble walking and other severe
problems for at least half a million people
in the U.S., and the causes aren’t com-pletely
understood. But physicists with
NC State’s Center for High Performance
Simulation (CHiPS) are learning more
about diseases like Parkinson’s by using
computers to model intricate events
­happening
inside our bodies, such as
protein folding.
While DNA provides the body’s operat-ing
instructions, proteins carry out those
instructions. But before a protein can do
its work, it must fold from a simple coil
into a 3-D structure. Many researchers
in the country study proteins and their
­activities.
But because the NC State
researchers use quantum mechanics to
model protein activities on a subatomic
level, they can track events more precisely
than even some laboratory studies.
The brains of people with Parkinson’s
contain plaques, which are abnormal
clumps of protein, mostly a protein called
alpha-synuclein. It’s not known exactly
what causes these plaques to form. So NC
State professors Miroslav Hodak and Jerry
Bernholc and Ph.D. candidate Frisco Rose
simulated by computer the most likely sce-narios.
They modeled what happens when
this protein encounters copper; high levels
of the metal are found in the cerebrospinal
fluid of people with Parkinson’s, and lab
studies of cells have shown that copper
is the most efficient metal at speeding up
the protein clumping.
“We wanted to find out if copper is
­capable
of causing changes that are seen in
Parkinson’s disease, and if we could prove
it by using our simulation,” says Hodak, a
research assistant professor of physics.
Hodak and Bernholc, Drexel Professor
of Physics and director of CHiPS, used a
new method they created that combines
two types of modeling to achieve greater
accuracy while keeping the calculation
manageable. The method uses molecular
mechanical modeling, which divides ob-jects
into atoms, and quantum mechanical
modeling, which further divides atoms
into nuclei and electrons.
Other researchers had shown with
lab experiments using real cells approxi-mately
where copper first attaches to the
protein. “But the information from lab ex-periments
was imprecise,” Bernholc says.
“We figured out on the basis of quantum
mechanical calculations exactly where the
copper goes.” Given that precise location,
the researchers could use molecular mod-eling
to determine how the protein folds.
Their simulation showed a detailed,
likely scenario for how copper attaches to
the protein involved in Parkinson’s plaques
and exactly how the protein folds to form
them. The study was published June 14,
2011, in Scientific Reports. The work
provides clues for other researchers to
use as they look for treatments. The NC
State team will expand on their work by
exploring the promise of a particular drug
as a potential Parkinson’s treatment. “We
have a target drug we want to look at to
find out if it removes the copper from a
misfolded protein and makes it fold back
into the original structure,” Hodak says.
This article originally appeared in the
Winter 2011 issue of NC State magazine,
which is a benefit of membership in the
North Carolina State University Alumni
Association.
the
Into
fold
Photo by Becky Kirkland for
a
Clearer
Parkinson’s
Pictureof
From left to right: Frisco Rose,
Jerry Bernholc and Miroslav Hodak
10 ■ Summer 2012 | scope
Your heart is racing and your muscles
are tensing. You peek outside one more
time and see that the thunderstorm is still
pounding. Lightning has struck a tele-phone
pole and split it down the center.
You close your eyes tightly and you wait
for the worst of it to pass.
Fear is a feeling well known to anyone
who has experienced a severe storm
up close. What is uncommon is Logan
­Dawson,
who opened his eyes after
a deadly tornado hit his hometown of
Birmingham, Alabama, and turned his fear
into a passion and a quest for knowledge.
Dawson, who graduated this spring
with a double major in meteorology and
marine science, vividly remembers the
day that set his academic path in motion.
“On April 8, 1998, when I was seven years
old, there was an F5 tornado that hit the
county, and 30 people were killed,” he
recalls. “After seeing the damage from the
tornado, I decided that I wanted to be a
meteorologist. From that point on, I want-ed
to understand the weather and predict
when storms were going to happen.”
Dawson’s path to NC State was put
in motion by his exceptional accomplish-ments
in high school, which resulted in an
offer of a Park Scholarship. At first a little
hesitant to study so far from home, it was
during Park Scholars finalist weekend that
Dawson fell in love with the campus, the
atmosphere and, of course, the meteor­ology
program.
The final selling point was the vast
array of opportunities for hands-on learn-ing,
leadership development and campus
and community involvement that often
defines the NC State student experience.
Easy, laid-back sumers?
No thanks.
Dawson has made sure to take full
advantage of his summer time away
from classes. The summer after his
freshman year, he spent time working
as a student volunteer doing research at
the National Weather Service Forecast
Office in Alabama, alongside an NC State
alumnus. The following two summers
he spent interning at the National Center
for Atmospheric Research in Boulder,
Colorado, and at the National Severe
Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma,
respectively.
Dawson’s undergraduate research has
been vital to his academic experience as
an undergraduate and, more recently, an
appealing element to his graduate school
applications. He will begin his gradu-ate
studies this fall in the atmospheric
sciences program at Purdue University.
Ultimately, he plans to work in a national
future
The
for
forecast is
bright
Logan Dawson’s
scope | Summer 2012 ■ 11
research lab studying ways to improve
severe weather forecasting.
Gary Lackmann, an associate professor
of marine, earth and atmospheric sci-ences,
and also Dawson’s advisor and Park
Scholarship mentor, has been impressed
with how well-rounded Dawson is—a trait
Lackmann believes will serve him well.
“Logan is really smart and not only
good with science, but good with people,”
Lackmann says. “It’s that community-minded
mentality that will continue to
move him higher.”
Leaving his NC State legacy
As a person who is driven by being able
to help others, Dawson quickly became
engaged in activities throughout the cam-pus.
One activity he has been involved
with since freshman year is also one that
he is most proud to have been associated
with: the annual Krispy Kreme Challenge,
which he first heard about when visiting
NC State during finalist weekend for the
Park Scholarship.
The Krispy Kreme Challenge began
rather modestly in 2004 when a couple of
undergraduate students at NC State dared
each other to run from the Memorial Bell
Tower to the Krispy Kreme donut shop
two miles away, eat a dozen donuts each,
and run back to the Bell Tower. The chal-lenge
has gained so much notoriety and
positive feedback in the years since, that
it has grown into an event that is not only
universally celebrated across campus,
but widely known as one of the more
unique college traditions in the country.
The race evolved from a simple dare to a
large ­charity
event that benefits the North
Carolina Children’s Hospital.
Dawson served as a co-chair of the
2011 challenge, working with a group of
student and campus leaders to strength-en
the race and encourage its spread
across the nation. More than 7,500 run-ners
were registered, and $122,000 was
raised in 2011.
Dawson is also involved with the
Society of African American Physical
and Mathematical Scientists, the PAMS
Student Ambassador Program and the
American Meteorological Society Student
Chapter. Through these organizations, he
served as a mentor to younger students
pursuing degrees in meteorology, as-sisted
in recruitment by speaking to high
school students, and volunteered at the
Raleigh Girls Club.
As serious as he is about his academic
and community service pursuits, Dawson
may be even more serious when it comes
to his support of NC State athletics. A
member of the Student Wolfpack Club,
Dawson was a regular at NC State sport-ing
events, and not just big-time events
like football and basketball. Whether it
was volleyball games, tennis matches or
swim meets, he always seemed to find
the time to cheer on his Wolfpack.
While he made the most of his NC State
experience, Dawson’s primary passion is
still the same one that brought him here:
the quest to better understand and predict
deadly storms like the one that swept
through his hometown back in 1998.
“I still see it as my primary goal to study
the weather to better understand it so
we can improve our predictions and keep
people out of harm’s way,” he says.
Photos of Logan Dawson by Melvin Moore
Photo by Becky Kirkland
12 ■ Summer 2012 | scope
Larval superhighway:
NC State receives nearly
$1.3 million to study
larvae dispersal
The Department of Marine, Earth
and Atmospheric Sciences (MEAS) has
received a $1.24 million research grant
from the National Science Foundation to
study the dispersal of oyster larvae in the
Pamlico Sound.
The official title of the grant is
­“
Collaborative Research: Interacting
Effects of Local Demography and Larval
Connectivity on Estuarine Metapopulation
Dynamics.” The project, which includes
partners from UNC-Chapel Hill and the
University of Maryland, will be led by
David Eggleston, professor of MEAS and
director of CMAST.
“This project will produce new tools,
as well as test and refine others for
­studying
larval connectivity in ­marine
­systems,”
Eggleston said. “It also
will ­provide
decision-support tools for
­improving
the efficacy of marine reserves
for management and restoration of
­marine
species and ecosystems.”
Eggleston noted that the grant also will
help train future generations of marine
­scientists.
“There is an extensive educa-tion
and outreach component in the form
of training undergraduate and graduate
students, mentoring post-docs, and
­providing
hands-on research ­opportu­nities
for high school students and their
­teachers,”
he said.
Support sustainable fisheries
right on your bumper
CMAST also recently announced the
development of a specialty license plate
that provides the opportunity to raise
funds to support student research in
­sustainable
fisheries in North Carolina.
In July 2011, the NC General Assembly
approved legislation authorizing the sale
of sustainable fisheries license plates.
Public support of the CMAST Sustain-able
Fisheries License Plate Program will
allow continued research and conser­vation
of recreational and commercially
important fisheries, support undergradu-ate
and graduate student training, and
provide educational outreach to help keep
North Carolina waters, and hooks, full for
generations to come.
Before plates can be produced, the NC
Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) must re-ceive
300 paid applications. The cost of a
plate is $30 ($60 for personalized plates),
in addition to any regular license fees. Part
of the proceeds goes to DMV with the re-maining
going to a special fund earmarked
for CMAST research and programs.
To preorder a specialty plate contact
CMAST at 252-222-6302 for an appli­cation
or visit the CMAST website: www.cmast.
ncsu.edu.
Located on the Carteret Community
College campus in Morehead City, NC,
CMAST is within short walking distance of
the UNC Institute of Marine Science and
the NC Division of Marine Fisheries head-quarters,
and is within five miles of the
Duke University Marine Laboratory, the
Center for Coastal Fisheries and Habitat
Research, the NC Maritime Museum and
the NC Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores.
Photo by Roger Winstead
CMAST Director David Eggleston (center)
and MEAS graduate students
taking measurements in
the Pamlico Sound.
From the underwater “superhighway” that transports ­oyster
larvae across the Pamlico Sound to the more traditional
highways we humans travel on dry land, the folks at
NC State’s Center for Marine Sciences and ­Technology
(CMAST) are always up for a road trip.
On the
CMAST
road with
scope | Summer 2012 ■ 13
There are still no bells in the Memorial
Bell Tower, but music has returned to the
campus landmark. The music comes from
a carillon, which enables songs played on
a keyboard in the basement of Holladay
Hall to create the sounds of bells that are
then amplified through speakers inside
the Bell Tower. The carillon had been
broken since 1989, but university officials
worked with the carillon’s manufacturer
last fall to make it functional again.
“It was amazing,” says Thomas H.
Stafford Jr., vice chancellor for student
affairs, who was on hand on an October
afternoon when NC State’s alma mater
was played on the carillon and broadcast
through the Bell Tower. “It’s been over
20 years. Just to hear it again almost gave
me goose bumps.”
The alma mater was performed by
Chris Gould, PAMS associate dean for
administration and a professor of physics.
Gould, an accomplished pianist, learned
about the broken carillon when he was
talking with Stafford about tours that
Stafford gives of the Bell Tower. Gould
and others in the Department of Physics
unsuccessfully tried to get the carillon
working again. But workers at the univer-sity’s
Physical Plant got involved, and after
consulting with representatives of the
carillon’s manufacturer, had success.
“It’s amazing that it works this well,”
says Gould. “If you look inside, it’s a
­mechanical
marvel.”
Stafford says students and others used
to play four to six songs on the carillon
­every
afternoon. Handwritten logbooks
from 1970–1989 show that religious
songs were played regularly, but that
­students
also played songs that were
­popular
at the time. Stafford hopes that
music will soon be played at a certain
time each day, as well as on special
­occasions.
“It has stirred up quite a bit
of excitement,” ­Stafford
says, “especially
among people who remember the music
we used to play.”
A version of this article originally ­appeared
in the Winter 2011 issue of NC State
magazine, which is a ­benefit
of member-ship
in the North Carolina State University
Alumni Association.
Interior Photos by Steve Townsend; exterior photo by Roger Winstead
PAMS
Help Bring
Back
Bell Tower’s
Musical
Tradition
the
physicists
Clockwise from top: Memorial Bell Tower, Vice Chancellor
Tom Stafford reminds Nancy Ridenhour (B.S. ‘76 Statistics)
how to play a tune on the carillon, old log books
from the 1970s, PAMS physicists examine
the carillon.
Summer David Montgomery
Distinguished Alumnus Award
David Montgomery (B.S. ’68, Ph.D. ’82
Physics) was selected as the college’s
2011 Distinguished Alumnus. Estab-lished
in 1990, the PAMS Distinguished
Alumni Award recognizes alumni whose
exceptional achievements in business,
education, research or public service have
brought honor and distinction to PAMS
and NC State.
A North Carolina native, Montgomery
comes from a “true red” Wolfpack family.
Upon graduating from High Point Central
High School in 1964, he followed in the
footsteps of his older brother and father
by enrolling at NC State. He continues to
serve his alma mater to this day through
ongoing service on the PAMS Foundation
Board of Directors as well as financial con-tributions
to the college, the Department
of Physics and The Science House.
Upon receiving his bachelor’s degree
from NC State in 1968, Montgomery
was honored as a Distinguished Military
Graduate of the Army ROTC program
and was commissioned with the rank of
second lieutenant in the Ordnance Corps
of the United States Army. He received
an active duty delay to begin his graduate
studies, where he had the opportunity
to study under two legendary physicists,
­Willard
Bennett and Wesley Doggett.
Under the direction of Bennett and,
later, Doggett, Montgomery learned
the ins and outs of plasma physics.
He also provided outstanding service
to PAMS and the university in various
teaching ­assistantships
and research
positions, both on campus and—for two
­summers—
at the Los Alamos National
Laboratory.
As Montgomery, himself, recently
recalled of this experience, “One of the
most fortunate occurrences in my life was
having these two gentlemen as mentors.”
When his four-year military delay
expired, Montgomery left campus for
the Ordnance Corps’ Aberdeen Proving
Ground in Maryland to satisfy his active-duty
requirement. He then served as
an instructor for the U.S. Army Reserve
School and the North Carolina National
Guard in the area of wheel and track
vehicle mechanics, reaching the rank of
captain before retirement.
By the time he earned his Ph.D. from
NC State in 1983, Montgomery had
already been working for four years as a
plasma physicist at Becton Dickinson and
Company in Research Triangle Park. His
early work at what is now known as BD
used low-temperature, ionized gas pro-cesses
to physically and chemically alter
the surfaces of disposable polystyrene
­tissue
culture products—products such
as petri dishes—so that cells would prop-erly
attach and colonize on the surfaces.
Montgomery designed and built a
laboratory of custom apparatus directed
toward the research and development of
commercially viable processes that could
mimic the glass surfaces on which tissue
culture had traditionally been done and
also to develop and analyze new surface
chemistries that allowed the culturing
of cells that previously required protein-based
substrates. Much of his work over
the subsequent three decades has been
in adapting these basic processes into
new applications and products.
The results continue to be impressive,
and he has been recognized for them
within BD, nationally and even internation-ally.
His work has led to 15 U.S. patents
and 5 European patents. In 2001, he
received BD’s Wesley J. Howe Award for
Process Development Excellence for his
work in the creation of a process required
for the functioning of a bacterial identi-fication
and antibiotic susceptibility test
panel. In 2010, he received the company’s
Wesley J. Howe Award for Lifetime
Achievement for his entire body of work.
He is one of seven recipients of the
award out of some 28,000 BD employees
around the world.
Martha Gardner
Medal of Achievement
Martha Gardner (Ph.D. ’97 Statistics) was
selected as the recipient of the college’s
2011 Medal of Achievement. Established
in 2005, this award recognizes early- to
mid-career alumni of the College of Physi-cal
and Mathematical Sciences who have
excelled through their chosen professions
or public service, and proven themselves
destined to make a significant impact in
science, government, education, business
or industry.
A native of Montgomery, Alabama,
Gardner received her B.S. in applied
mathematics and classical languages from
the University of Alabama. By her own
recollection, Gardner wasn’t enamored of
mathematics at first. In fact, she thought
she was on her way to becoming a Latin
professor when an advisor told her that the
reason she didn’t like math was that she
hadn’t taken the “right kind” of math yet.
At that advisor’s encouragement, Gard-ner
enrolled in her first statistics classes in
the last semester of her senior year. She
would go on to earn an M.S. in statistics
from Alabama, then came to NC State to
study under Professor J.C. Lu. Her experi-ences
with Dr. Lu and his collaborators in
the College of Engineering interested her
The College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences
­continued
its tradition of celebrating the achievements of its
alumni and friends at the annual PAMS Awards Dinner, held
last December at the Cardinal Club in downtown Raleigh.
The three 2011 honorees all boast impressive professional
resumes and unparalleled service to NC State and PAMS.
14 ■ summer 2012 | scope
Montgomery, Gardner and Butler
honored at annual PAMS Awards Dinner
Summer in a career in industry and prepared her to
work across different disciplines.
Upon graduation from NC State,
Gardner joined the Applied Statistics Lab
at General Electric Global Research. She
spent the early part of her career focused
on the development and application of
novel and efficient approaches to experi-mental
design and analysis for physical
and computer experiments.
Later, she turned her attention to aircraft
engines, serving as project leader of the
probabilistic design research effort for GE’s
aviation and energy businesses. Probabilis-tic
methods she and her team developed
at that time were implemented in in-house
design tools and have since been adopted
by hundreds of GE engineers.
Since 2004, Gardner has served
as global quality leader for GE Global
Research. She leads GE’s Design for
Six Sigma and Reliability Councils, and
she is currently focused on integrating
TRIZ decision making into research and
technology development at the company.
Gardner has been recognized for her
success throughout her 13 years at GE.
In 2002, she received GE Research’s Hull
Award for early career research. In 2004,
the MIT Technology Review listed her as
one of their “Top 100” young innovators.
She was promoted to principal scientist in
2007 and chief scientist in 2011.
Gardner is a certified GE Design for
Six Sigma Black Belt, GE Quality Leader,
and MATRIZ Level 3 TRIZ Practitioner.
She is also a past-chair of the Quality
and Productivity Section of the American
Statistical Association and serves on the
editorial boards of Significance, Quality
Engineering and The Journal of Statistics
Education.
Throughout her career, Gardner has
maintained ties with PAMS and been a
strong supporter of the Department of
Statistics, most recently as a leader in
the drive to endow the R.A. Fisher
­Distinguished
Professorship.
Damon Butler
Zenith Medal for Service
Damon Butler (B.S. ’96, Applied Math-ematics)
was selected as the recipient
of the college’s 2011 Zenith Medal for
Service. Established in 2005, this award
recognizes alumni or friends of PAMS for
distinguished contributions or advocacy
that significantly advance our ability to
make powerful impacts on science, the
economy, the environment and the quality
of human life.
Upon his graduation from NC State
in 1996, Butler joined the U.S. Air Force.
He spent six years as a space and mis-sile
­operator
with top secret security
­clearance
in Air Force Space Command,
eventually rising to the rank of captain.
He continued his formal education dur-ing
his military service, earning a master’s
degree in aeronautical science from Embry
Riddle Aeronautical University. After his
separation from the Air Force, Butler went
on to earn an M.B.A. from Duke Univer-sity’s
Fuqua School of Business in 2004.
Butler then moved to New York City to
join New York Life, where he has since ris-en
to corporate vice president, with current
responsibilities in optimizing productivity,
analyzing competitor underwriting guide-lines,
designing workflow enhancements
and evaluating performance metrics.
In addition to his professional accom-plishments,
Butler has had a profound
impact on PAMS and its students. In many
ways, that service began while he was
still an undergraduate major serving as a
math tutor to his fellow students. Today,
he serves his fellow former students as
well as the college as a member of the col-lege’s
Alumni and Friends Advisory Board.
While he has been extremely gener-ous
with his time, money and talents,
Butler’s greatest contribution to PAMS
has been as a leader in the ongoing ef-forts
to increase participation in science,
technology, engineering and mathematics
(STEM) opportunities among underserved
and underrepresented populations. He
regularly returns to campus at his own
expense—and often on short notice—to
serve as a motivational speaker and role
model for future STEM leaders.
He has engaged elementary and
middle school students through Imhotep
Academy and Kyran Anderson Academy.
He has addressed prospective and current
PAMS students through the Multicultural
Affairs Visitation Day, freshman diversity
classes and last fall’s Department of
Mathematics graduation ceremony.
Butler also recently established the
Butler Summer Academy. Modeled after
Imhotep and Kyran Anderson academies,
two successful PAMS programs, the
Butler ­Summer
Academy will enhance
the STEM knowledge and leadership and
etiquette skills of rising 6th graders from
underserved populations in and around
Wake County.
scope | summer 2012 ■ 15
Photo By Marc Hal
Award recipients Martha Gardner, David Montgomery and Damon Butler
16 ■ Summer 2012 | scope
Stephen P. Reynolds, Alumni Distin-guished
Undergraduate Professor of Phys-ics
in the College of Physical and Math-ematical
Sciences, has been honored with
an Award for Excellence in Teaching from
the University of North Carolina Board of
Governors. One educator from each UNC
system campus wins the award, which
comes with a prize of $7,500 and a bronze
medallion.
The Board of Governors Award for
Excellence in Teaching is the most presti-gious
award given to faculty for teaching
excellence and was created in 1994 to
underscore the importance of teaching
and encourage, recognize and reward
outstanding teaching. Nominees for the
award must be tenured professors who
have spent at least seven years at the
nominating institutions and who have
“demonstrated excellent or exceptional
teaching ability over a sustained period of
time.”
Reynolds is the fifth PAMS faculty
member to receive the award. Previous
winners include Forrest C. “Buzz” Hentz
(Chemistry, 1994–1995), Richard R. Patty
(Physics, 1998–1999), William H. Swal-low
(Statistics, 2006–2007) and Robert J.
Beichner (Physics, 2009–2010).
In addition to being a world-renowned
astrophysicist, Reynolds is also an ac-complished
violinist. As an undergradu-ate
student at Harvard, he served as
concertmaster and assistant conduc-tor
of the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra.
In graduate school at the University
of ­California,
Berkeley, he performed
with the Oakland Symphony and other
Bay Area professional orchestras. An
­endowed
scholarship recently was es-tablished
in Reynolds’ honor to support
an outstanding undergraduate student
who is pursuing a minor in music with a
stringed instrument.
Reynolds received a bachelor’s degree
in physics from Harvard in 1971, and M.S.
and Ph.D. degrees in physics from the
University of California, Berkeley in 1973
and 1980, respectively. He is a Fellow of
the American Physical Society.
Wang keeps PAMS’ ­CAREER
Award streak going strong
Huixia “Judy” Wang, assistant profes-sor
of statistics, has received an Early
Career Development Award, more com-monly
known as a CAREER Award, from
the National Science Foundation (NSF).
The award is one of the highest honors
given by NSF to early-career university
faculty in science and engineering, and is
intended to advance the development of
their research and careers. This is the 18th
CAREER Award received by a PAMS fac-ulty
member—and the fourth received by
a member of the statistics faculty—since
2004. Each of the college’s academic
departments has received at least two
awards during that time.
Wang’s five-year, $400,000 grant will
fund research related to her proposal,
titled “A new and pragmatic framework
for modeling and predicting conditional
quantiles in data-sparse regions.” Through
this work, Wang and her collaborators will
seek to develop new theories and meth-odologies
to better model and predict
events that may be extremely rare, yet
have significant consequences. Unexpect-edly
heavy rainfall, large portfolio loss, and
dangerously low birth weight are just a
few examples of the types of events that
could be addressed.
A native of Henan Province, China,
Wang earned her B.S. and M.S. in statis-tics
from Shanghai’s prestigious Fudan
University before coming to the United
States in 2002 to conduct her doctoral
work at the University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign. After earning her Ph.D. in
2006, Wang joined the faculty of the NC
State University Department of Statistics,
where her research has focused on bioin-formatics,
quantile regression, measure-ment
error, missing data, longitudinal data
analysis, survival data analysis, empirical
likelihood and extremes.
Reynolds
­receives
award
for
­excellence
in
teaching
Photo By Marc Hal
Photo by Becky Kirkland
Huixia “Judy” Wang
scope | Summer 2012 ■ 17
Harald Ade (Physics), Jerry Bernholc
(Physics) and Sastry Pantula (Statistics)
were elected as Fellows of the Ameri-can
Association for the Advancement
of Science, an international organization
“dedicated to advancing science around
the world by serving as an educator,
leader, spokesperson and professional
organization.”
Edmond Bowden (Chemistry) was
named the 2011 “Alumni Star” by the
College of Humanities and Sciences
at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Bowden earned his Ph.D. in chemistry
from VCU in 1982 before joining the
NC State faculty.
Charles Case (B.S. ‘73 Physics) was
named a North Carolina Super Lawyer
for 2012. Case is a partner in the firm
of Hunton & Williams and heads up the
firm’s environmental group in Raleigh. He
also serves on the board of directors of
the PAMS Foundation. It is the seventh
consecutive year that he has appeared
on this annual listing of the state’s top
attorneys.
Richard Deans (Chemistry undergrad-uate
student) was one of four NC State
students to receive a 2012 Goldwater
Scholarship. This merit-based scholarship
is awarded to about 300 college sopho-mores
and juniors nationwide.
Todd Fuller (B.S. ‘96 Applied Math-ematics)
is a member of the 2012 class
of the Atlantic Coast Conference Men’s
Basketball Tournament Legends. A na-tive
of Charlotte, Fuller was a dominant
inside presence for the Wolfpack, earning
All-ACC honors three times and leading
the conference in scoring his senior year
before a five-year career in the National
Basketball Association.
Chueng Ji (Physics) was named a
Fellow of the American Physical Society
“for his remarkable and pioneering con-tributions
in QCD (quantum chromody-namics)
applying light-front dynamics to
fundamental aspects of hadron physics,
including spectroscopy, wave functions
and form factors.”
Tim Kelley (Mathematics) has been
named chair of the board of trustees of
the Society for Industrial and Applied
Mathematics, an international organi­zation
of more than 13,000 applied
and computational mathematicians,
­computer
scientists, numerical analysts,
engineers, statisticians, mathematics
educators and students.
Nicholas Lowman (Applied Math-ematics
graduate student), Molly Matty
(Chemistry undergraduate student)
and Alison Moyer (Marine, Earth and
Atmospheric Sciences graduate student)
received National Science Foundation
graduate research fellowships. These
prestigious fellowships support outstand-ing
students in STEM disciplines, provid-ing
three years of support with an annual
stipend of $30,000, a cost-of-education
allowance, and international research and
professional development opportunities.
Paul Roelle (M.S. ’96, Ph.D. ’01
Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sci-ences)
has been promoted to the rank
of colonel by the U.S. Air Force. Roelle is
the deputy chief of integration, plans and
requirements for Headquarters Air Force
Weather.
Photo by Aelx Sacehnz NC State Madei Renslatio
NOTABLES
Courtesy of Paul Roele
Todd Fuller
Molly Matty Paul Roelle
18 ■ Summer 2012 | scope
John Blondin has been selected to
serve as head of the Department of
­Physics,
effective January 1. He suc-ceeded
Michael Paesler, who returned
to the faculty after six years of service as
department head.
Blondin earned a B.A. in physics from
the University of Wisconsin in 1982.
He then proceeded to the University of
Chicago for graduate studies, earning his
M.S. in 1984 and his Ph.D. in 1987 under
the direction of Arieh Konigl. He com-pleted
postdoctoral research positions
at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center,
the University of Virginia and UNC-Chapel
Hill before joining the NC State physics
faculty as an assistant professor in 1993.
He was promoted to associate professor
in 1997 and full professor in 2002. Before
being appointed head, Blondin had served
as the department’s director of under-graduate
programs since 2007.
An internationally renowned astrophysi-cist,
Blondin has been computing the cos-mos
for over 20 years, using everything
from a laptop to supercomputers. He
began his experience in high-performance
computing with the opening of the Na-tional
Center for Supercomputing Applica-tions,
and continues to take advantage of
the largest machines currently available,
including Ranger at the Texas Advanced
Computing Center, with 63,000 processor
cores, and Jaguar at the National Center
for Computational Sciences, with 224,000
processor cores. His research includes
interacting binary stars, accretion disks
around black holes, supernova remnants,
and the origin of supernova explosions.
He co-authored the hydrodynamics code
VH-1, which is widely used in the astro-physics
community.
John Blondin has been honored
throughout his career for excellence in
research and teaching. He received the
Sigma Xi Faculty Research Award in
1995, Cottrell Scholar Award in 1996 and
National Science Foundation Early Career
Development Award in 1997, and he was
elected a Fellow of the American Physi-cal
Society in 2009. Blondin also received
NC State University’s Alumni Outstanding
Teacher Award in 2000 and the Alumni
Distinguished Undergraduate Professor
Award in 2010.
In his very limited free time,
Blondin enjoys playing ice hockey with
his two sons, both of whom are
NC State mathematics majors.
Physics has a rich history at NC State,
dating back to the earliest days of the uni-versity.
In 2009, two now emeritus faculty
members, Jasper Memory and Raymond
Fornes, completed a comprehensive
history of the department, titled History
of the NC State University
Department of Physics:
A Success Story. You can
check it out at www.phys-ics.
ncsu.edu/history.
You may remember how difficult it
was to manage the expense of higher
education. You may want to help today’s
students achieve their dreams.
The PAMS Foundation provides many
ways to support students, faculty and pro-grams
of the college. Whether you want
to contribute to an existing scholarship,
support a departmental enhancement
fund, make a memorial gift or consider
support in other areas, our staff is avail-able
to help you explore the options.
To support existing funds
To contribute to a scholarship, fellow-ship
or other fund, fill out our secure,
online gift form at www.pams.ncsu.
edu/give or mail a check
to the PAMS Founda-tion,
­Campus
Box 8201,
Raleigh, NC, 27695. Make
checks payable to PAMS
Foundation and write the name of the
fund on the “notes” or “for” line.
If your employer provides matches
for charitable donations, please send a
completed matching gift form with your
contribution.
There are many funds
not mentioned in this
issue of Scope. For a full
list of funds, visit go.ncsu.
edu/pams_funds or
­contact
our office.
To explore other options
If you have questions about gift
planning, we can help you identify tax
benefits, choose between permanent en-dowment
versus one-time support, and
explore estate planning or life-income
options.
There are many ways to match your
interests with specific college needs,
and several possibilities for making
your vision a reality. Whether using
cash, ­appreciated
stock, real estate or a
­bequest,
we can help you find the best
way to make the most of your gift.
Contact us at 919-515-3462 or by
­e-
mail at pams_dev@ncsu.edu.
Blondin
chosen as
of
new head
physics
John Blondin
How to make a gift
Photo By Marc Hal
Summer For a celebration worthy of NC State’s
125th birthday, we need more than just
one party. In fact, we’re going to take a
whole year to celebrate and invite all our
closest friends, starting with faculty, staff,
students and alumni. The celebration
theme, Tradition and Transformation, sets
the stage to take a proud look at our past
and imagine the many discoveries ahead.
It all started on March 5, with the
traditional Founder’s Day Dinner, followed
by the transformation of the university’s
Website, ncsu.edu, on March 7, NC
State’s official birthday. The first week
of March also marked the unveiling of
the 125th logos, which include stylized
­renderings
of the Memorial Bell Tower.
But that’s just the beginning. A blue-ribbon
planning committee, co-chaired
by Dean Dan Solomon, has put together
a series of signature events. Undoubt-edly,
the highlight so far was a raucous,
campus-wide birthday party held April 2
at Reynolds Coliseum. More than 4,500
­students,
faculty, staff and supporters
came out to enjoy music, food and give-aways
and to share their Wolfpack pride.
Beyond the campus-wide activities,
entities from across the university—from
the 12 colleges to dozens of student
­organizations—
are also taking part by
­giving
their programming this year a
­special
125th twist.
“What I like about the 125th is that
it’s an opportunity for us to celebrate our
­connection
and passion for NC State,”
says Nevin Kessler, vice chancellor for
university advancement and the other
co-chair of the 125th planning committee.
“We can set our goals a little higher, reach
a little further than we have in the past,
and have some fun doing it.”
You can keep up with the latest 125th
news at 125.ncsu.edu.
A 125
scope | summer 2012 ■ 19
making
years
celebration
in the
Photos Courtesy of University Communications
20 ■ Summer 2012 | scope
Kristen Hall loves NC State, PAMS and
the Department of Marine, Earth and At-mospheric
Sciences (MEAS). As a gradu-ate
student at the University of North
Carolina Wilmington who just earned her
B.S. in geology from NC State in 2010,
Hall is not in a position to make a large
donation to her alma mater. That doesn’t
make her any less committed to giving
back and supporting current students.
She also knows that her contribution,
combined with others, goes a long way
toward making a transformative impact
on the department, college and university
she loves so much.
“I decided to make a gift to PAMS
­because
of the great experiences I had as
a geology major,” Hall says. “While I was
at NC State, I had so many opportunities
at my fingertips, and I hope my small gift
will go a long way in continuing to make
those opportunities possible.”
During her time as an undergraduate
student, Hall took full advantage of both
NC State’s world-class research opportu-nities
and the smaller communities the
university and PAMS offer. She worked in
the laboratory and in the field alongside
MEAS graduate students and faculty,
quickly developing a sense of what it
means to do real research. She was also a
part of the WISE (Women in Science and
Engineering) living-learning village
and was the president of the PAMS
­Student
Council.
A native of Wilmington, NC, Hall is
­using
her experiences at NC State to
study shoreline erosion and accretion
of Masonboro Island. Her research is
directed at how hurricanes, beach renour-ishment,
and the implementation of the
jetties have affected the island. She also
works at the tutoring center on campus
focusing on geology, physics, chemistry,
environmental sciences, oceanography
and marine biology and teaches classes
every semester in UNCW’s Department
of Geography and Geology.
Every gift counts
While universities across the country,
including NC State, tend to publicize
the larger, sometimes million dollar
gifts, smaller gifts have a tendency to
go unannounced. However, they are
very much noticed—and very much
appreciated. Last year, gifts of $100 or
less to NC State added up to just over
$1.1 million, with over $40,000 going
to PAMS.
These gifts impact the university’s
reputation as well as its bottom line.
Alumni giving—at any level—is a key
factor in college and university rank-ings,
including the annual rankings in
U.S. News and World Report. Parents
and students often compare rankings
when making enrollment decisions.
According to Ann Horner, executive
director of the NC State Annual Fund,
alumni gifts are more important than
ever. “My goal for Annual Giving at
NC State is to help alumni get into the
habit of giving back to us,” she says.
“The best thing about annual giving
is that anyone can participate. All it
takes is that first gift in the amount
best for that person at that time.”
To make a gift of any amount to
PAMS, please contact
the Office of Col-lege
Advancement at
919-515-3462 or give
online at www.pams.
ncsu.edu/give.
Young alumni show their ­in
ways big and small
Wolcfpak pride
Kristen Hall on graduation
day and hard at work
as a UNC Wilmington
graduate student
photos courtesy of Kristen Hal
Dr. Margaret D. “Canopy Meg
Lowman is director of the
Nature Research Center at the
North Carolina Museum of
Natural Sciences and research
professor in the College of
Physical and Mathematical ­Sciences
at NC State University.
“
Learn more at
www.pams.ncsu.edu
How do we address some of the world’s greatest challenges and unlock
the mysteries of the universe? We start by preparing the next generation
of scientists with the skills, the confidence and the sense of responsibility
to be effective communicators of science and informers of public policy.
The College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences at NC State is proud
to be a leading partner with the Nature Research Center in inspiring future
generations to be great scientists and great science champions.
Transform. NC State University.
Partners in
­Transforming
Science
Nonprofit Org
US Postage
PAID
Raleigh, NC
Permit #2353
Campus Box 8201
Raleigh, North Carolina 27695–8201
Encourage Excellence
Your contribution to the PAMS Fund for Excellence provides direct
support for Dean’s Circle Scholarships. These scholarships help the college
recruit the best and brightest students from across North Carolina and
beyond—students who will be the next generation of science leaders.
Giving is easy. You can either contact our office directly or give online at
www.pams.ncsu.edu/give. The online gift form will allow you to designate
your gift to the Fund for Excellence or the departmental fund of your choice.
www.pams.ncsu.edu
pams_dev@ncsu.edu
919-515-3462
Would you like to be a
­member
of the Dean’s Circle?
Donor recognition levels
begin with your gift of
$1,000 or more.